Six Hours In The Salt Lake City Airport Doesn't Count As A Natural Disaster

I'm home and have been for 12 hours give or take. I didn't get nearly as much sleep as I would have liked (or needed) because at 6 AM give or take Scooter decided to let me know just how much he adores me. After an hour of purring, head butting and petting (he pets me; he's the only cat I've ever had who does that), he felt the time had come to bite me and I felt the time had come to get out of bed.

So I am still very tired.

The clothes are in the drier and as soon as I finish this, I'll pop over to my mother's and see how her laundry is doing (I know how she's doing, since I've already spoken to her).

But I did want to let you know that Life As We Knew It won a poll without my telling (okay, begging) you to  vote on it. An honest to goodness victory:

Last week we asked you which natural disaster in YA lit was the most terrifying, and your overwhelming choice was the meteor striking the moon in Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. The volcanic eruption in Mike Mullin’s Ashfall and the drought in Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse also collected a few votes.  

I guess you could call it a landslide victory.

Tomorrow, or maybe Wednesday since Tuesday is $2.00 off at the movies for old folks day, I'll write about my excellent time in Utah and show you some pretty pictures. But today is devoted to laundry and napping.

It's good to be home!

Stuck Stuck Stuck Stuck Stuck Stuck Stuck

At the Salt Lake City airport for 3 hours (after having gotten here 2 hours early) because of a problem with the airplane.

I am feeling crankier and crankier.

It's a long flight home and a pretty long drive from the airport and I want to be on my way already!

So I just figured I'd  complain to all of you.

Thank you for listening- your stuck at the airport pal Susan Beth Pfeffer

One Good Reunion Deserves Another

Almost no sooner than I had introduced the German version of This World We Live In to its relatives, the Chinese version arrived. The almost is because there's no mail delivery on Sundays, so the book arrived today (aka Monday).

Naturally, I introduced it to its siblings.

Then Scooter wanted to meet it.

He decided he needed to think about it some more.

While he pondered, I gathered all the different versions of This World We Live In so they could chat.

Since I don't speak French or German or Chinese (heck, I barely speak English), I couldn't understand most of what they said.

So Scooter, Cat Of Many Languages, obligingly eavesdropped.

Now, if someone can translate Meow for me, I'll know what's going on!

What's Been Going On Whilst The Revisions Were Ongoing

I think that Whilst is a nice touch.

I've actually been quite busy working around the rewrites. A fair amount has happened, much of it pretty fair.

I gave an interview to Scripts & Scribes.com in which, among other things, I reveal my addiction to FreeCell (yes, you knew all about it, but now the world's been informed).

Das Leben Das Uns Bleibt arrived. That's the German version of This World We Live In. Naturally, I introduced it to its German siblings. It was particularly excited to see the Buxtehude Bulle Award Winning Die Welt Wie Wir Sie Kannten.

Then I gave a small party for Das Leben Das Uns Bleibt to meet its international  first cousins.

As the youngest member of the Moon family (at least the youngest one with a title), there aren't that many first cousins just yet. But the clan is expected to grow, and more reunions are anticipated.

The paperback of Blood Wounds arrived.

 I had actually seen it at a bookstore before I got my copies, and if you look to the link on the right, you can see that many different bookstores have it for sale.

I began preparations for my upcoming trip to Utah, where I will be participating in the  Provo Library Teen Book Fest along with Jonathan Maberry. If you should be around Provo on Saturday I hope you pop in. And if you should be around my apartment this week, I hope you won't break in. I'm going to spend a couple of days as a tourist in Salt Lake City, and I'll be doing a school visit in Provo (the very last school visit I have scheduled), as well as the Book Fest.

Fortunately for me, Scooter The Vicious Attack Cat is prepared to take on all comers!

Lucky For Them I Made A Vow To Stop Complaining

You may not have noticed, but once again I didn't win a single Nobel Prize.

Granted, I didn't have much of a chance in all those science ones, and I can see why they picked a Literature winner with a name easier to spell than Pfeffer. But Peace? I mean, who is more peaceful than I? I even let Scooter bite me (well, I try not to, but he is a biter and I am a very peaceful person). And Pfeffer is at least as easy to spell as European Union. Plus I'm a whole lot cuter, which ought to count for something in Peaceland.

But that's how my week is going. My doctor failed to compliment me on my weight loss, even after I casually  brought it up three times. She actually suggested I lose more weight, which, while I'm sure it's a fine idea, wasn't exactly what I was waiting to hear.

Then yesterday I had to cancel on going to New York City to participate in an event celebrating the publication of After, in which I have a short story. I felt cruddy, which I'm attributing to the flu shot I got at the doctor's (although just as likely, it was my reaction to being told I should lose more weight). And we will not discuss the baseball playoffs and a certain team I was raised to root for (my father's favorite player was Babe Ruth), which not only doesn't win nearly as often as I would like, but plays games that last forever, making me stay up much too late, thus leaving me vulnerable to Scooter's late night snack on the human routine.

Oh well. The good news is the revisions are all neatly revised, and most likely on their way to the copy editor. Granted the book doesn't have a title, but you can't have everything.

I'm sure it'll have a title in time for next year's Nobel Prizes. And by then, they'll have learned how to spell Pfeffer!

I Would Tell You The Title Of The Book On Which I'm Working On Revisions Except It Doesn't Have A Title And I'm Too Lazy To Be Working

Instead I've put all my energy into the heading of this blog entry.

The revisions I'm currently avoiding are those which my editor did. I finished the rewrites a couple of weeks ago, but no editor ever thinks a book is perfect, so they make little suggestions and the occasional snide comment, and then expect the author (who knows the book is perfect) to respond to those little suggestions and the occasional snide comment.

I have an extraordinary gift for (I know blogspot won't accept this as a word, but who cares) snideitude myself, so it's always a temptation to outsnide (ooh, another non-existent word) my editor in my comments about her comments.

I do not always resist temptation.

Total non-sequitur, but I recently read a book about the Brontes (as you may recall, I was left Emily Bronte in my 9th grade yearbook last will and testament page). Papa Bronte (I wish I could slap those darling two dots over the "e" but that's a computer skill I don't have) was originally named Brunty, and if he'd kept that name, do you think Charlotte and Emily and Anne Bronte would have the place in literature they have? Even if he'd changed it to Bronte, but didn't have the computer skills to put those darling two dots over the "e", so their name would have been pronounced Br-oh-nt, would they be quite so beloved and their home a national monument (actually I don't know if it is a national monument, but it's certainly a museum, which it might not have been if their name had been Brunty).

I guess they could have had that place in literature by their pseudonyms- Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, but Bronte's a whole lot better.

Yes, I should be doing the revisions. But if I dawdle just a little more, it'll be lunchtime and there's no point starting work until after I've eaten.

Le sigh. I have to finish the revisions today, because I said I would, and besides, tomorrow I'm having my annual physical and then in the afternoon I'm doing a Skype visit. The high point of the physical would be my doctor commenting on my weight loss, but I only see her once a year (seeing as I'm healthy) and she won't even notice unless she reads my chart, which odds are she won't bother. Then Thursday I'm going into NYC, to participate in a reading and discussing of the anthology After, in which I have a story. The reading and discussing (a whole bunch of writers will be there) will be at Books Of Wonder at 18 West 18th St. from 6-8 PM, in case any of you feel like dropping by.

Okay. It's 11:45, which means if I play another 3 games of FreeCell and check to see if I have any emails and what's going on at Figure Skating Universe and anything else I can think of, I won't have to start working on the revisions of The Great Untitled Fourth Moon Book for hours. Or at least minutes.

I'm off to dawdle. That and sniding are what I do best!

Entitlement Or The Lack Thereof

AKA: Title? Title? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Title.

My editor and I have fallen into quite a comfy pattern. I email her 88 different title possibilities (generally one title with an additional 87 variations) and she emails back to say No 88 times (generally one time with  an additional 87 variations).

I then email her a whole new title with only 37 variations (notice, all these variations are prime numbers- I love prime numbers), and she emails back 3 possible titles with 5 variations each, which is, of course, her way of saying No!

So I email back No! 15 times (which is my way of saying No!) and send her a few new, even more splendid title possibilities, and I never hear from her again.

It's funny. For years and years and dozens and dozens of versions, the fourth moon book was known as The Shade Of The Moon. Then my editor expressed some reservations about the title, and the next thing I knew I was hosting a poll on what version of Shade/Shadow you all preferred.

Then I began begging you to come up with a title for me. Then I started coming up with titles on my own.

The next thing I knew I was no longer hearing from my editor.

This morning, while exercycling, I came up with a perfectly wonderful title that has nothing to do with the book so it's of no use to me, but one of you might like it for something you're writing:

When We In Death Awaken

Isn't that gorgeous?  I liked it so much, I wrote a poem:

When we in death awaken
To the smell of burning bacon

Here's what might happen with The Great Untitled:

My editor and I figure out a title we both like.

We call it The Shade Of The Moon and forget this whole business.

For lack of a title, the book never gets published, but I get to keep the money anyway (not that I've seen the money, but a girl can dream)

We go the Robert Benchley route:

With all that volcanic ash floating around, 50 Shades Of Grey would work just fine!