- Tasty Bite microwave entrees -- Indian dinners that heat up in two minutes, are relatively nutritious (as two-minute dinners go), and are indeed tasty bites.
- Internet Scrabble games.
- James, le boyfriend, who just made a book trailer for HarperCollins that has almost a million hits among YouTube, MySpace, and various other websites. (I'm not linking to it here simply because it's very deliberately geared to the sensibilities of nineteen-year-old frat boys (as is the book), with all that that implies, and I would like my family to retain a good opinion of James, who does NOT have the sensibilities of a nineteen-year-old frat boy.) But you need a book trailer? He's your guy.
- Rachel Griffiths, who just got promoted to Editor and is moving to Scholastic Press in August. Yay Rachel!
- Emily Clement, our fabulous new AALB editorial assistant. If you're submitting to Arthur, be nice to her.
- My new part-time intern Shannon.
- Five Bucks to Friday and Go Fug Yourself, which make me laugh every single day.
- Dove ProAge Day Moisturizer, which actually does reduce the fine lines caused by laughing at GFY and FBtF.
- Nice taxi drivers.
- Church.
- The Bruce Springsteen song "Badlands" off his Greatest Hits album. I am terminally musically uncool, so I'm always discovering artists one, or three, or in this case twenty-eight years behind everyone else, and this leaves me unable to grab people by the shoulders and say "This song is fantastic! You must listen to it!" because everyone already knows the song and they smile politely. But what the heck: This song is fantastic! You must listen to it! Hard-driving, hard-working, hip-shaking, damn fine rock and roll.
Finally, if you're thinking of sending me a SQUID in the next month, I would suggest you wait. While I'm keeping up with my agented manuscripts, I have to say that between the Bologna Book Fair (which Arthur attends and I prep him for), the SCBWI talk I'm giving in April, a crazy work project, and several novels to edit, I'm probably not going to get to my unsoliciteds again until probably May. Holding off will save you the stress of waiting and me the stress of the pile. Thanks for understanding.
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Hmm. Might the "crazy work project" be a certain Deathly Hallows??? ;.}
ReplyDeleteI just recently discovered Springsteen's "Jungleland" myself. But then again, I didn't listen to even AC music until I was a sophomore in high school. Going on junior.
ReplyDeleteAw, I keep you sane. That's nice to know. I've got a couple of Springsteen albums I'll "loan" you as part of a Harry Potter care package whenever the hell Dell gets me my laptop back.
ReplyDeleteTasty Bites are great. I'm living on them right now, too. Madras lentils and jaipur veggies--yum!
ReplyDelete5 Bucks is how I found your site:)
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting us know on the squids, Cheryl. I won't even think about the submission I already sent you until early summer.
ReplyDeleteAlso for another great sanity-saver but a terrible time-waster, try weboggle.shackworks.com. This is better than regular Boggle!
Oh geeze louise. I just sent it on Thursday or Friday. Just like me, a day late and a dollar short. Oh well, you will read them eventually won't you?
ReplyDeleteIt's almost the end of March, and April will fly by with the showers we will probably get, and so May flowers and then June bugs will be here before you know it.
Thanks for letting us know Cheryl.
Brenda
(weeping)
ReplyDeleteArg! I've released my SQUID into hostile waters!
Of course, I mailed my submission last Wednesday only to read this today.
I guess the consolation is that my submission will be nearer to the top, and all those folks with really good manuscripts will hold off, giving you an opportunity to kill time by reading mine...
(/weeping)
Reading your blog is one of the things keeping me sane . . . as sane as I can be, that is.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads-up about the SQUIDS. Always good to know.
Great suggestions! Thanks for the Interactive Scrabble one... love that game, but sometimes have no one to play with!
ReplyDelete