New Artwork Day!

I finally added some artwork to my Etsy site. I'm building, slowly, slowly.





Also- as of today, I'm only 15k away from finishing my new first draft. Right on track!
How's everyone else doing on the mannys? Good? Bad? Ready to frame it or ready to burn it?

Let's Not Get Nutty, Here

Okay, I wanted to bring attention to something for all 8 of my loyal followers (25% of whom are international- thanks for classing up the joint)

In the last 24 hours, I've gotten the same cut and paste message about 4 dozen times, and run into it in the oddest of places all over the internet.

It goes something like this-

Attention...the Dairyland Race Track in Kenosha, Wisconsin will be closing on December31, 2009. 900 Greyhounds need to be adopted or they will be euthanized. Please help me get the word out; there is only 6 weeks to get this task done. Contact Joanne Kehoe Operations Director P: 312.559.0887 Or Dairyland Race Track Adoption Center direct at (262) 612-8256 Please repost this to your facebook & help these dogs.

Now, Kenosha is my former hometown. I'm very familiar with this track. And while I'm not a fan of dog racing for a lot of reasons, I'm really not a fan of fear mongering, and shock tactics. (PETA, this is why I really can't stand you. )

YES the track is closing

YES a lot of dogs will need new homes

YES contact the adoption center directly at the track if you are looking to adopt a retired greyhound.

After a little research, I've uncovered that nothing else in that announcement was remotely accurate.

Joanna Kehoe, whoever she is, has nothing to do with the track, and lives in another state.

The number of dogs at the track is somewhere between 300 and 500. Many of these dogs will be removed by their owners after the close of racing on Dec 31. Many more are already part of arranged shipments to adoption groups in other parts of the country, or Canada, starting in early December.

It is illegal in Wisconsin for owners to simply euthanize racing dogs instead of retiring them.

The track has been in decline for years, and the announcement to formally close was made months ago. The adoption center and participating humane groups are well aware of the situation. This is not a desperate situation that must be solved in 6 weeks. The adoption center at the track is already committed to remaining open until all adoptable dogs have been placed.

This post is calling attention to the fact that a lot of great pets will be available at the end of the year, and that anyone interested should get on the phone now, and help out.

But it also uses pretty gruesome scare tactics, implying that on Jan 1, nearly a thousand dogs are going to be slaughtered. This is simply not true, and I really don't appreciate this kind of BS.

Do not lie to people to shock them into acting. Tell them the truth, portray the situation accurately, and be ready with all available information when asked.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the source of this very misleading and manipulative post was one of the "animal welfare" groups which finds it necessary to exaggerate, fabricate, and outright lie to further their own agenda. Which is frankly cruel to animal lovers everywhere. The truth is often bad enough.

If you want the real story, contact Dairyland Adoption Center, or Greyhound Pets of America. These are great dogs. They all deserve great homes.

Way Too Much Fun

Writing YA, that is.
I had never tried it before this ms, even though I've had the idea, most of the story, and the characters with me for years.
I'm not officially doing the NaNo thing, but if I keep on task, and put down 2350 new words a day, I can finish the month with a solid 70k first draft. 50+ of which will have been written in November. Very reasonable goal for me and my 2500 word average.
Then I can spend December revising the last ms.
Oh, and I might be looking for some readers around the end of January, beginning of February.

On another note, while I want to think that my cat is eager to sit on my lap because I'm warm and toasty and he loves me, it's probably just because he wants some of my lunch. But I'll take it.

Part of the All Inclusive Service

I've been cutting my kid's hair since he was 5 months old. Just part of the job. He has his dad's very thick head of hair, and it grows like a weed. And since he's old enough now, and I can't stand parents who use their kids as fashion accessories, I let him decide how long he wants it.

Dad and I both have pretty long hair. Pretty long? Mr. Cate's is down to his waist in the back.

Junior wants none of this. He wants it fairly short. High and tight, like Peyton Manning recommends. And he hated getting his hair cut in the cute little children's barber shop with the fire engine chairs and the muppet videos. Hated it.

So I bought myself a big electric clipper. I've used them before- on horses. How hard can it be to clip one little head?

I explained what was going to happen, that if he sat still it would all go much quicker. I even asked him how he wanted it cut, he still wasn't happy when he saw those clippers on the table. But he sat there bravely, trying not to scrunch his shoulders up while I trimmed the back of his head.

When we were all done, there were big smiles in the mirror. My customer was pleased. But most importantly, I got this ringing endorsement-

"Good job, Mom! You didn't even cut any holes in my head!"

You're welcome, son. It was the least I could do.

Post Script

Here's your real problem, O troubled Rejectionist- were the very best books of this whole year really only written by men?
be sure to but take a click over to the children's list ;)
Yay Maggie!

That's Right, I'm Un-Following!

I had to do it. I had to click that little button that unlinked me from The Rejectionist.

And I really do love her sense of humor. We would probably get along great, at a bar. However, she had to go and post a "review" of Shiver which was really just a rant about Stephanie Meyers, by way of Maggie Steifvater, who happens to be a fellow blueboarder. The Rejectionist wrote a lot of things I'm sure she wouldn't say at Publishing Industry Cocktail Hour, and lots of things the rest of would know better than to say on a public forum. And it was offensive to me, frankly.

So you didn't like the book. Fine! So you wouldn't recommend it to anyone, ever. Fine! Bad reviews get more attention than good ones, I know. I watch/read end of the year movie reviews just to see who came out at the very, very bottom. But Miss Rejectionist didn't really talk about the book so much as rant about an apparent trend in YA fiction of "enfeebled" and needy female protags who are waiting for a man to show up and fill the void so that their lives can truly begin. She went on to basically blame Meyers and Stiefvater for this, throwing out a literary history that includes everything from European fairytales through Shakespeare all the way up through modern day chick lit and every movie ever tagged as a romantic comedy.

Rather than post a thoughtful discussion on the topic of the nebulous concept of strength in female characters, the Rejectionist instead called the writing crap, and Twilight and everything after shit. Bad form.

I've never read Twilight. I probably never will. It doesn't really seem like my cup of tea, just from the vampires-fighting-werewolves angle alone. But I would never call someone stupid for having read it, or actually enjoying it. Somethings are just for fun. Expecting every female protagonist in YA lit to exemplify strength through independence, courage and a total lack of sentiment is no different than the demand that every depiction of sex or drug use in a YA novel must be accompanied by some sort of depiction of adverse consequences.

Meyers and Steifvater wrote books about girls who may be a little too wrapped up in their boyfriends. And? Does that really not describe a single modern teenage girl (or let's face it, full grown woman)? Is this really the worst thing that's happening to our young women? Forget all of advertising, forget beauty pageants, forget playboy bunnies getting reality shows, forget the endless stream of dating shows where a herd of needy women compete for the attention of some total @*!# with a rose; it's a few YA novels that are contributing to the lack of self esteem among young women in our culture. Sure. And that book about the male penguins hatching an egg is turning our kids gay.

If you don't like something, you have every right to say so. There are plenty of things I avoid like the plague just because they have gotten too popular, and I can't stand hearing about them for one more minute. There are also plenty of things I like, which according to my hipster smart-ass accreditation I should not. I like LOST, okay? I play Farmville, and I saw Love, Actually in the theater twice, and I now own it on DVD. I know they are all stupid. I got it. They're also fun. I'm smart enough to know the difference. I don't really think I own a farm, and I don't really think that Oceanic 815 crashed onto a mysterious island, and I don't really think that hot Spanish guy would leave Laura Linney because she answered her phone too much. I can tell the difference between fantasy and reality, and I think most teenage girls can, too. Especially the ones who read a lot of books.
I think the last thing we want to do is make any young girl feel ashamed of the writing she loves to read.

Tidying Up

Hey, my blog has a brand new look! And a nifty new banner I made!
What gives??
Well, it's Revision Time around here, which means I'm trying to think clean, organized, well polished thoughts. Some artists and writers talk about the terror of the blank white page. I treasure it. A new, clean page is that much more room to work in.