I can't believe 2011 is now 75% over! Wow, where did all that time go?

So let's see what I've been up to…

The Last Slayer

I got a note that Audible picked it up, so it's going to be available as an audio book. That's super-exciting: my first audio book! I'll keep you updated.

Oh and in case you haven't seen it, here's the cover from Carina Press. The Art Department and Frauke Spanuth did an amazing job. I also love how Carina Press reworked the back cover blurb, incorporating the pitch paragraph from my cover letter and adding more to it.

The Last Slayer Sequel

I've titled it Thrones of Thorns for now. I wanted to the title to refer to some kind of element in the story, and I'll leave it up to you to imagine what that might be. It may change though…

This is the project I'm doing the 500 Words a Day Challenge with, and so far it's going very well. At this rate, I'll be done with the first draft by mid-December at the latest. I'll have to do a round of revision before I can show it to anyone for feedback, but this time I'm going to try sending it before drafting it millions of times. Usually that's what I do before showing my project to anybody… I can get a weeeee bit obsessive. But recently I realized that when I do that, I usually don't want to do further rounds of revision, incorporating everyone's comments, because just the idea of looking at the project one more time makes me feel ill. Which, if you think about it, is really unproductive and silly. So it's time for a Change In Process.

The Sekrit Assassin Project

I can't believe I'm still drafting it, but I am. (Don't judge me.) Anyway, I'm going to finish this draft before the year's over and send it to Agent. I don't think there's anything else I can do to this project that I haven't thought of, and it's about time she sees it.

On to non-writing stuff…

I can't wait for Dexter to start! W00t! It's one of my favorite shows, and I'm dying to meet this season's serial killer.

And here's the Boy, 3 months old. People have asked for a picture, and I finally got around to moving photos from my digital camera to the PC. The onesie is a special gift from his honorary Auntie May. (Maybe he'll grow up to be Spiderman…)

Have a great October, everyone!

Hero Material and I've been watching The Closer recently, and who would've thought it would manifest in my subconscious?

A couple of nights ago, I had this weird dream that Kuro committed some kind of crime. I don't even know what he did, but that's not the point of my dream. The poor hamster was arrested, complete with teeny handcuffs. Shiro, with her litter, came to the police station to defend him. I was playing the Brenda Leigh Johnson character (the investigator, if you're not familiar with the series), so of course I asked her lots of difficult questions. The poor hamster squeaked in distress, hopping around on the table, but I didn't believe that she was telling me the truth. Meanwhile the infant hamsters were writhing on the table, blind, deaf and hairless. It was just really surreal. Kuro told Shiro he loved her, and the dream more or less ended.

On the non-weird-dream / hamster front, the weather's been odd. The temperature plunged suddenly, and it's freezing here. The big news here is the “massive” layoffs of maybe 2,000 workers or so by several local corporations. In Japan, there are two tiers of employment: seishain (full-time regular company workers) and contract / temporary workers. The latter category is broken down into two categories: shokutaku shain and hakken shain. Shokutaku shain is someone employed directly by the company on a short-term contractual basis, usually for a year. Hakken shain is what most Americans consider temp workers, meaning the company got them through temp agencies. When companies decide to cut costs, they usually let go of their contract / temp workers first. Currently Japan still clings to lifetime employment, and companies have certain obligations to their seishain. That includes not firing them first, paying for their health and pension insurance premiums, giving perks, bonuses, etc. (Contract / temp workers do not receive any bonuses or pay raises, etc.) Due to all this inequity in employment, a lot of non-seishain have been protesting the recent layoffs, etc. Furthermore, IBM Japan laid off its seishain (gasp!), which created even more drama. Oi.

BTW — The Big Three bailout is a huge conversation topic in Japan. After all, it does affect Japanese firms. Auto suppliers hope for the bailout since many of them have contracts with the Big Three. I enjoy reading financial analyses, etc. but if I read another person write that Japanese firms have a huge cost advantage because they get free health insurance and pension, I'm going to scream. I've been in two countries with nationalized health care. It is not free. Everyone must pay. People pay about $400 or so per month, and if they're seishain, companies pay a big chunk of it. Companies also pay for their pensions. If that's not bad enough, Japanese companies must ensure that their workers aren't overweight or overly rotund around the middle or pay an enormous fine to the Health Ministry for overburdening the national health insurance system. Furthermore, the government had a huge screwup with its pension funds, and since Japan has too many retirees and not enough young workers, it's planning to double the sales tax. So please, stop with all this “free” stuff.