I can't see how this is right

Get a Cash Advance

But cool.

Thanks to Fuse #8 and Brooklyn Arden for the link.


I'm on VACATION!!!! Wonderful, delicious, lounging about and reading and watching tv and surfing the internet to my heart's content VACATION.

Will it ever stop? and Happy Thanksgiving!

I've been wanting to try to simplify my life, but I guess it's not in my nature. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed again at work--all of the Fall 08 novels have safely made it into copyediting, more or less on time, but because I put everything else on hold during pretty much the entire month of October, I'm once again playing catchup, missing emails, buried in reading. If you sent me an email in October or late September and never received a response, please email me again, as most likely the email was deleted by the system before I could respond. I tried to catch them before that happened, but no doubt a few fell through the cracks.

I know I've been tired and hectic at work when I'm unable to muster going out on a Friday night. Lately, I'll I've had energy for is to maybe have a few drinks after work, and then I'm home by 9 or earlier, fast asleep by 10 pm.

I have managed to have some fun, though, of course. I went with some girl friends to see the Pan Asian Repertory Theater revival of The Joy Luck Club. Now, the movie adaptation is probably the movie that made me cry the hardest and the most. And so I braced myself during the play for tears, but they never came. There were some poignant moments, but not enough to make me cry. But I still enjoyed it overall. I think it's a tough book to adapt into a play, but they did a good job, and I thought overall it was very well-acted. It was nice to see older Asian actors up there. There was one white male cast member, and after the play we giggled about how he played both one character's father and husband.

Just a week earlier I saw Pygmalian on Broadway. My friend had scored us some free tickets, so I went, not knowing much about the play except that Claire Danes was in it (I love her from My So-Called Life). I skimmed the New York Times review beforehand, but didn't read it in detail because I don't like to be skewed by reviews, but I knew the review overall was mediocre. But personally, I thought the play was lovely. I knew that My Fair Lady had been adapted from it, but didn't realize how closely, down to the names of the characters. I was tempted several times to burst out in song. "I could have danced all night..." and wondered if the cast would have sung along with me. Some of the "speeches" and scenes went on for too long, but overall I found it to be humorous, well-acted, and wonderful to watch. The set was fantastic. I couldn't get over how it actually rained on stage at the beginning. How did they do that?

I also saw the movie Dan in Real Life on Halloween. Not a very Halloweeny thing to do, but fun nonetheless. I enjoyed the movie--I knew almost nothing about it going in, and so therefore had no expectations. It wasn't a true comedy--more of a family drama, similar to The Family Stone. But I found it well-acted and poignant. My friends and I especially liked the last line of the movie: expect to be surprised.


And now it's past Thanksgiving and I'm in CA at my parents' home. I had written most of the above about a month ago, but never posted it. I still hope to write about the NYC marathon, too (I didn't run it this year...well, not officially). I'm still trying to figure out how to simplify my life. I've been enjoying these past few days of vacation, the slow, fairly unplanned days, the time to go for a run, play tennis, play games, watch movies, get a facial, a haircut, visit with friends and family, and read. I'm actually reading an adult book for pleasure (I just realized that with the italics for emphasis, and if you didn't know I worked in children's books and assumed a different meaning for "adult," that sentence may be interpreted the wrong way). And sure, I'm reading a submission as well, but it's on my fancy new Sony Reader which is making it fun (my company is doing a trial for these Readers to see if they can help us save paper and money in the long-term, and I'm loving it so far. So many agents are submitting electronically now--it saves time, for sure, but on our end, we've been printing hard copies of the manuscript out, which is such a huge waste).

At any rate, I'm still on vacation next week and am going to ENJOY IT, dammit. And then on Friday I'm off to the Big Sur Children's Writing Workshop. Even though I've lived in the Bay Area before, I've never actually been to Big Sur, and am excited. Anyone else going?

I hope everyone is having a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday.

Robert's Snow for Cancer's Cure

It's been a while, sorry! So much going on, I hope I'll be able to post more when I'm in CA over Thanksgiving.

But for now, I wanted to make sure everyone was aware that the Robert's Snow for Cancer's Cure fundraiser has officially begun. Auction one of three began this morning, so go and BID! Even if you don't think you'll be able to win, please bid anyway, because of course the goal of all of this is to raise as much money as possible for cancer research.

Please spread the word! And thank you to everyone who helped spread the news about the auction far and wide, especially Eisha and Jules over at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. It has been truly amazing and heartwarming to see the kidlit community come together over this event.

Are you right brain or left brain?

You may have seen this before, but my friend Heather sent this along. Check out this link here and let me know if you see the girl rotating clockwise or counterclockwise.

At first all I could see was her turning clockwise, which I guess means I use more of my right brain. This was interesting for me to know, because I never thought of myself as particularly a right brain thinker. But I guess if some of the qualities of a right-brain thinker include "big picture oriented," "can 'get it' (i.e. meaning)," "presents possibilities," and "risk taking," then it makes sense. (Although of course I associate with many of the left-brain qualities, too! Like "words and language," "acknowledges," "forms strategies," and "practical.")

I wasn't able to get her to switch directions until Heather suggested looking unfocused at her feet, and then she switched. So weird! Some of my friends were convinced that it was some technical trick, but yet when we looked at the same screen at the same time, I would see her turning clockwise, while another person would see her continually switching. I'm baffled as to how it works.

So, which part of your brain do you use the most?

Okay, I just had to post it

The Red Sox are in the World Series!!

For a while, I thought that maybe I had jinxed them (typical sports fan reasoning), because I couldn't find another picture of me in my Red Sox hat. So I cheated--this one was taken yesterday as I walked all around Manhattan in my hat (I walked from the Upper East Side to the East Village--a good three miles--and then from there all the way west--11th Street--in Hell's Kitchen). It was such a gorgeous day.

I promise...I'll have a real post one of these days. In the meantime, check out my post over at the Blue Rose Girls on Peter Brown and his fabulously bouncy, exciting, pretty good week.

What I'm working on now--another sneak peak.

I just posted over at the Blue Rose Girls about what I'm working on now, plus I also highlighted a few of the books I've worked on that are available this fall. Check it out here.

Red Sox win again!

Red Sox won last night! I don't know why, but I'm getting a kick out of finding old pics of me wearing a Red Sox hat. Coincidentally, this one is also an icy setting--this is from my family reunion a few years ago to the Canadian Rocky Mountains. I'm on the Columbia Ice Field.

I was originally planning to go to the Rutgers One-on-one conference today, but am attending a former colleague's wedding in the Poconos instead. This has been an unbelievably hectic week, and I don't see it letting up until two weeks from now at the soonest. I'm trying to get my four novels on the Fall 2008 list into copyediting in the next two weeks. They're getting there...in the meantime, a lot of my other work/emails/reading has been put on hold. Bear with me, please!

Go Red Sox!

Yankees are out. Too bad.

:)



P.S. This is a picture taken at Kindling Words in 2005, I'm sitting on a frozen Lake George. I won't be attending Kindling Words next January, unfortunately--I had been four years in a row and love it! But I'll be going to China (exciting!) for ten days in January and just couldn't swing it.

Blue Rose Girls starting back up this week

We're resuming our regular posting over at the Blue Rose Girls blog today. I posted about the Carle Honors dinner I attended last Tuesday.

As for this blog, I'll try to post soon...

UN for Taiwan!

Last Saturday, September 15, hundred of thousands of people rallied around the world to support Taiwan's bid for UN membership. I participated in the peace rally in NYC across from the UN (although I wasn't able to stay for the march).

There were a lot of people there despite the early hour and threatening rain. Everyone was festive and friendly, excited. The speakers energized the crowd--it was hard to judge how many people were there, but I'd guess 500-1,000, some of them having traveled from far and wide, some caravaning together on buses, to be there. There was even a performance of John Lennon's Imagine. I wore my "Dai wan lang" (Taiwanese) T-shirt, waved green flags, and chanted "UN for Taiwan! UN for Taiwan!"I'm not an overly political person (although I of course do have certain strong beliefs), but I do think that Taiwan is rightfully an independent, sovereign country--it's a democracy, has it's own president and political system, and is so separate from China in almost every way. Unfortunately, the UN rejected the membership bid. I don't know when/if Taiwan will ever win their bid, but I know they will keep trying, and I applaud everyone's efforts.

You can read more about the rally and the politics behind it here and here.


UN for Taiwan!