R&R: yankee style

About a week and a half ago the husband and I made a rare "just-for-fun" escape to the north. Our nation's great capital!! Washington DC. The trip was a bit poorly timed due to Hurricane Sandy, but we enjoyed our time up there all the same.  

We stayed with my critique partner, who lives in a wonderfully colorful neighborhood just a bike-ride away from all of the cool sights! I loved all of the row-houses and all of their character. There was also a really amazing coffee shop just around the corner where you could sit leisurely and enjoy cups of Counter Culture Coffee (the best!).

I have nothing but love for this place. If you're ever in DC you should check it out!! (They even have homemade Earl Gray Gin! I never got to try it, but I'm still incredibly intrigued.)

Our first day there we had pretty decent weather, so we decided to ride bikes and look at all of the monuments. 

We pretty much literally biked everywhere. Down the mall, over to Georgetown. We even pedaled all the way to Old Town Alexandria in Virginia! The Mt. Vernon biking trail is incredibly lovely and long.  I remember jogging on it in high school during the summers I stayed with my Grandma in Alexandria. It was just as good this time.

We took in the monuments and the fall colors. (Which we squealed and stared at like southern savages. You just don't get such amazing color down here in the south!)

Pretty leaves!

I took a picture of these berries because they were such strange colors. Does anyone know what kind they are?

And of course we had to take the obligatory "this-monument-would-make-a-great-hat" picture.

On Sunday we went to the National Cathedral and took in all of its very pretty stained glass and quirks. We spotted the Darth Vader Gargoyle and got an impromptu tour of the building by a very eager congregation member! It's amazing to me how close the architects and builders of this church came to imitating the old Gothic European style. But even with all of our modern machines and resources it took almost 100 years to build. I can't even IMAGINE how much work and dedication it took the medieval architects...

LOVE!

This scene reminds me of something from Beauty and the Beast!

Then the weather took a turn for the worse.

Sandy arrived! There was a lot of rain and wind and cold. But that didn't stop us from walking 6 blocks through the storm for Ethiopian food:

Husband was born and mostly raised in Ethiopia, so this food is close to his heart. We don't have any Ethiopian restaurants in Charleston, which was why we decided to walk through a hurricane for it. It was worth it.

So that was DC. A trip cut short by Sandy! Thankfully we weren't too inconvenienced by her. We even caught our flight back home on time, which was miraculous compared to most peoples' experiences. Best wishes to those still dealing with her aftermath!

BONUS PICTURE!

Apparently this sort of behavior is frowned upon...

Candy. Zombies. YALLfest.

Hello, hello! And a happy Monday to you all!

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Halloween. I got to go Trick-or-Treating for the first time in years with my two and a half-year-old cousin. And I must say, I forgot how scary it can get for little, little kids. One of the porches we went to sported a mechanical scarecrow that pulled off its own head and laugh maniacally while its eyes glowed red. Which meant that I had to tote my cousin around on my hip the rest of the night. Poor guy.

Though I must say, I understand parent tax now. I might have snitched a thing or two out of this bucket.

Too be fair, that is a LOT of Reese's. ;)

So many things are happening this week! The whirlwind never seems to stop! It does seem fitting though that on the tail end of Halloween, my short story Hairline Cracks is being release in the anthology The Fall. There are scary, monstery things in the story. Plus some blood and guts. You can read it and a whole bunch of other cool stories by authors like Mindy McGinnis, Jean Oram and RC Lewis and many, many more HERE.

And, just in case you forgot what the cover looked like, here's another glimpse of the ominous awesomeness!

On a lighter and more pie-filled note: THIS WEEKEND IS YALLFEST! (I'm excited, can't you tell?)

You guys, last year was so much fun! There was pie and books and much celebration about all things young adult! And this year is going to be even better! There are 50 different authors coming in to share their thoughts on everything from spaceships and zombies to movie adaptations.

So if you're coming drop me a note and I'll keep an eye out for you! Last year I met a lot of faces I only knew from the online realm. And it was fabulous.

a portrait of insanity. i mean--revisions.

Two words have never felt so good. Seriously.

I know I'll be back to it in a bit, but for now, I'm celebrating the end of six very long weeks.

I've been through several rounds of revision already with so many different projects, but every time feels like the first. So I'm partly writing this road map to remind myself of the process.

Day 1: Edit letter arrives in your inbox. You're utterly excited to finally read it. About ten words into the letter your excitement starts to curdle. Die. Instead the panic starts to rise as you start reading all of the impossible things your agent/editor thinks need to change. Doesn't she know they're essential to the plot?! You talk on the phone with agent/editor and realize that they aren't as essential as you thought. You repeat the mantra writing is all about killing your darlings over and over again in your head to psych yourself up for the gargantuan task ahead.

Days 2 and 3: *commence utter panic, chocolate binge and denial of reality*

Day 4: Okay. You can do this. Breathe and repeat after me. You. Can. Do. This.

Day 5-Week 2: You start deleting scenes (between tears and more chocolates) and writing new ones. You have no idea if you're making it better or utterly destroy any semblance of bookness it had.

Week 3: You stop and reread through everything you've done (about 100 pages deleted/rewritten). Hey. It's not so bad. It could even be good. It might even be... *gasp* better? Could your agent/editor actually be right?

Week 4: You thought you would be done by now. But you're not. Your manuscript is starting to resemble a half-creature. More minotaur than centaur. But if it were a centaur, it would be the ones from Harry Potter and not those floofy pony creatures from Disney's Fantasia films. No. Your manuscript is gnarly. And it bites. And it might shoot poor unaware wizarding students if it had the chance.

Week 5: Your manuscript is looking better, but you, dear writer, have gone downhill. You've been living off coffee and whatever meals your poor husband decided to scrounge together for you. You've hit the wall. The point where even a few days off can't recharge your writing batteries. Week 5 is a beast.

But then... you reach Week 6.

Week 6: There's a light! A light at the end of the tunnel! You've just read through the reworked part of your manuscript (yet again) and lo and behold, it's actually a cohesive story! (It happens every time but it still feels like a miracle). Spurred on by this success, you work extra hard to cobble those last few scenes together. And before you can even start to second guess yourself you cram it into an email to your agent/editor and press SEND. After blinking at the screen in disbelief for several minutes you get up from your computer and look around at the chaos of your house. You walk straight to the kitchen and pour yourself a glass of wine.

And that, my friends, is what revision is like for me. And it sounds terrible, but I wouldn't trade this job for the world.

the busyness of life

Fall is busy.

Which makes Ryan a terrible blogger. The busyness also addles her brain a bit, which is why she's now referring to herself in the third person. Alas.

Which I will now stop doing because it requires too much brain power for my addled brain.

Because I'm insane and I really want to take big and expensive trips all around the world, I have not one, but two other jobs I maintain aside from writing big, fat books. I also try to have a semblance of a social life. And settle in to my new house. So when revisions roll around combined with all of these other things, I have a minor panic attack and then sacrifice my blog posts as a result. So I'm sorry. You have fallen victim to my insane schedule.

BUT I'm starting to see the light at the end of the revision tunnel, which is always a good thing. (Generally it means I have about a week or two left in the process.) 

To destress I've been painting furniture. It helps. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the paint fumes. Or the very bright colors. 

The colors go into my grand scheme to give my new house pops of cheer and bright. (Yay!)

I also had a friend show up today to help me paint:

He meandered into my yard and helped by bounding around, wagging his tail and looking generally cute until his actual owners arrived and took him away. I have a feeling I'll see him again, since I've seen this particular pup roaming the streets of our neighborhood before. He must be a jailbreaker.

Other than paint I've been on the road a bit, going to weddings as both a photographer and a guest. While in Richmond I stopped here:

And bought a book just because I loved its cover. A good enough reason, right?

I've also been enjoying the colors of fall. Leaves. All things pumpkin. Cool air. I LOVE this time of year.

What has everyone else been up to? Is fall just as busy for you guys?

anthology news

I'm quite please to announce that I have a short story coming out at the end of October in an apocalypse anthology entitled The Fall. I'm in good company too. Fellow Lucky 13er Mindy McGinnis has a story coming out in it as well. 

My story, Hairline Cracks, has more than a few zombies. And some ghosts.

And isn't the cover cool and doomsy? It seems like the perfect place for a wilderness hideout in case of imminent world endings.

Which gets me thinking. What would YOU do in a world-ending scenario? Let's say, for example, that there really was a zombie apocalypse. What's your plan of action?

I live in a port city... so I would probably head for the water/the marina. Or take my kayak and paddle out to one of the remote barrier islands and live off of cactus shoots. Hm... I'll have to think more about this.

LUMINANCE HOUR's shiny new title!

Titles are funny things.

Sometimes they're the most obvious things in the world, staring you down in the face. Other times, they're impossible.

When I first sat down to write this book I gave it a very functional, practical title. It was about a Faery who guarded a prince, so I called it GODMOTHER. This is the title I queried it under.

But super-agent informed me, as I was working on revisions, that GODMOTHER was not a very sexy or shimmery title. So together we brainstormed.

It went through a few test titles such as AMONG THE NIGHTINGALES, before we finally settled on LUMINANCE HOUR. We chose this title because it encompassed the theme of time and light that plays throughout the book.

But luminance is a hard word for people to say (especially when you can't read it in front of you). Super-editor and the fabulous team at HarperTeen decided that it wasn't the right blend of poetic and commercial. So back to the drawing board we went.

This was a hard, hard book to title. I really wanted something that would capture the poetic and lyrical feel of the prose, but was also relevant and catchy in a commercial way. Not easy to do. Not easy at all.

But we did it. The book's new title is....

(drumroll)

(...)

(...)

ALL THAT GLOWS

I'm really happy and satisfied with what we came up with. I think ALL THAT GLOWS is the perfect blend of poetic and commercial, and really captures the feel of Emrys's story. It evokes sunrises, moonlight, magic, love...

Plus here's hoping it makes a super pretty cover!

Here's to glow!

taking the plunge

Today I decided to get my hair cut. Not just trimmed, but chop, chop short like I did a year ago. The reason? I am in the morning, very lazy and not-functioning for at least 2 hours, and I prefer a hairstyle that will accommodate an "I-just-rolled-out-of-bed-look."

For me this is the fro. A very short and shaggy hairstyle that compliments my curls and requires absolutely no brushing of any sort. I got one last year and really liked the way my hair looked, and how it took so little effort to make it look that way.

I decided to try a new stylist (I don't go to get my haircut very often at all, so I don't have an established, regular stylist). Which didn't turn out so well. I couldn't figure out how to verbalize exactly what I wanted to her, and while she did cut my hair short, it was not in the style I was envisioning/dreaming of. So instead of sitting in the chair and hoping for the best, I left with a not-so-amazing hairstyle.

It took a few hours in the mirror and a lot of nervous pacing, but I finally decided that if I wanted the haircut I was envisioning, I would have to do it myself. 

The best thing about hair? It grows back! And curly hair is very forgiving when it comes to lengths. And I've already trimmed/cut my own bangs before. So I had all those things going for me.

So I grabbed the scissors and took the plunge.

Because I'm in the middle of revisions, I automatically compared hacking off lengths of my own hair to going into my manuscript and drastically changing things. Just like hair always grows back, you'll (hopefully) have backed up versions of the scenes you're changing, so it won't really be a loss if what you're trying doesn't work.

And sometimes, beautiful, wonderful things come out of taking the plunge. Things you'll never discover unless you hold your breath, pick up those proverbial scissors and take the risk.

For those of you who are curious, here's the new, low-maintenance hairstyle. Yay!