Warmed and Bound Goes Hollywood

 

Warmed And Bound: release date & cover photos – and too much back story

all right. i’ve run in circles, peed a little, danced the dance of Cinderella’s stepmother in the hot iron shoes – only, if that were a happy experience – carried the kitten to the bathroom because she’s afraid of the dark, put the kiddo to bed and sang Suzanne Vega to him until my throat is ragged, planned the things i want to say to my husband at 2am about his unwavering faith in me … i think i’m ready to sit still for a moment and say “Holy shit. This book. How the hell did I end up in this book?”

it will be available FRIDAY JULY 22nd for $15.95 on amazon.com (ebook details soon)

and the book – these people – go meet these people: http://welcometothevelvet.com/forums/

and the book site – get over there, too, that’s where the NEWS lives:  http://warmedandbound.com/

under the photos in this post lives the little acorn of misery, love and inspiration that led to the girls that led me by the hand into this book….

i’m going to be doing a few questions for Jay Slayton Joslin (along with the other amazing people in this list) but here’s the extended and sappy answer to ‘the’ question:

Where did I get the story?

the answer is ugly. think a new baby and insomnia and a sister you rarely see but miss painfully – and think total seething anger for this sister, because in your head is this beautiful ethereal duo tapping their toes and waiting to be drawn in the shapes of letters. they have nothing to do with your family issues. all you can do is resent the bitterness you do NOT want to bleed into this innocence. so you miss your sister. and bite your cuticles and have recurring dreams about peculiar trees. what happens? giving in, what always happens…. you can tie off your fingers at the first digit but the story will only hold so long. the twist ties and kite string snap and through the blood under your fingernails, you watch the core of a something indescribably beautiful take shape in the hate and love and need – and the trees. “The World Was Clocks.”

three years later, everything has changed – but Heather, this story was always for you.

Happy Father’s Day, Eric

“The child is father of the man.”
-William Wordsworth

happy rainy may (shootin’ some guns)

the best of april (photos)

gratuitous visual post

Resurrection: Thunderdome, Issue 3

okay, so i didn’t write anything in this issue, but i took all the pictures – that’s little man’s hand:

http://thundadome.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=80:thunderdome-april-2011-resurrection&Itemid=56

spring in fragments

in the pines (where the sun sometimes shines)

birds

there were nuthatches on the birdfeeder when we woke. that’s the best thing i’ve seen in a long time…

things are coming awake. i’m coming awake. eric is coming awake. adam is… well, poor thing is benefiting from the end of hibernation.

job change on the horizon for mi esposo very soon, his eyes are bluer and he sleeps better as a result. and i sleep better as a result. and adam sleeps better as a result of the bluer eyes – if daddy is happy, adam is happy.

yesterday was library storytime, there was a valentine’s day party. i had my first taste of primal animal protectiveness when i left him in an entirely different room on a rug with 15 strange children. he is large. he is grown up. he attends storygroups. he gets valentines from little girls, in a little paper sack covered with stickers and his name written on it in magic marker. he gets approached by little girls from the group in mcdonald’s. little girls with blond hair dart from unknown places to tell my son hello.

seriously, at one point he didn’t have teeth, i swear.

birthday party on sunday. i forgot to send the invitations, i’ve been frantically soliciting RSVPs via email. looks like i squeaked by again, everyone seems to be coming.  what a fiasco the party will be- i hate this sort of thing. oh well. not about me.  adam will have an awesome time – there’s a “bouncy bean” so it’s bound to be a success.

taken some rejections, they sting less and less. my confidence grows. got a non-answer from a lady whose opinion meant more than the story rejection that came moments after her email, and i was able to read the rejection with a huge smile and a “what the hell do you know?”  attitude.

SPRING IS IN THE AIR, MOTHAFUCKAS!!!!

and on the heels of that horrible language, here are some photos adam took this week on his playskool camera:

THREE YEARS OLD!!!

Photos from an Old Cell…

2006  in no particular order….

twas a good year

chapter 2 (2) & In the Night Garden

it is not finished – i open and look at the fairly well-aligned scraps, i knit my eyebrows in a very studious way, put my fingers over the keyboard – remove them again, take a sip of coffee, scroll up and down, sigh deeply and with much thought, fold my lip between my fingers, adjust the font size, another sip of coffee, wonder what will happen in chapter 7, rub the furrow between my brows, glance across the road at the llama standing at the mailbox white on white in the snow staring at me and i think  ’surely that llama can’t actually see me from here, if nothing else the glare on the window would keep him from looking in’  another sip of coffee – minimize the window, go to the front door to take a better look at the llama who by this time is taking a shit because that’s what all animals i make eye contact with these days DO – they take a shit - then i frown and go back to my seat, pick up the laptop, open the window again, cut three to four lines that definately do not fit, say “adam, do you want more eggs?”  ”no, i just want to crash cars.”  save the document, close it – fast forward 8 hours, repeat…..

headcold gravity. my legs are simply too heavy to do anything domestically productive besides cook, and do a little laundry – i guess what i mean to say is i will continue to step over matchbox cars as i walk past the precarious pile of dirty dishes until possibly thursday. the sky is no color. my brain and eyes feel veeeeery far back inside my skull, even further distanced by my glasses. adam is bored with me.  he’s headcold heavy, too, and wants toys brought to him. i get it. i’m not doing it, but i get it. if someone would bring me coffee i would rather have it that way. i will fetch him tissues and juice and popsicles and food, but i will not bring him new matchbox cars or a different comb to work on my little ponies’ rat’s nest hair.  eric is as we are, only putting in 12 hour days at the lab regardless. i would have him here. snotty and in his pajamas with us.

i like makka pakka the best. i get that, collecting rocks and washing random things. i have a lot of rocks, and they are very clean.

february 1st i go LIVE with my second ever online published (anywhere published) story on http://thundadome.com/ , in the Bleeding Hearts issue.  i’ll list that in my hopeful Things of Mine page when it comes to be. it’s a stripper story, an idea given me by angela and cropped in half for the purposes of  fitting the wordcount and somehow becoming a better story…. i have a vampire story that might work for the next issue but don’t want to push my luck, i have sleep to get and feedback to give and am waiting to hear back from a couple other places about different stories and there’s always CHAPTER 2 to be fixing, and i do not want to overwhelm one place with a kind editor with story-pressure… also i think the vampire story mentions the 12 step program, and as i just sent them a story about someone in AA that seems a bit excessive for one topic, though they were written years apart….

i will close with a photo selected at random from a hotmail folder i just found containing a bunch of old cell phone pictures – i  clicked on a photo code and this was there. it was taken on 12/15/07, out the back window of our old apartment – there’s a vase of dried flowers (from our one year wedding anniversary), and a ton of snow on our back deck. i was 7 months pregnant….

  and this photo, which would have been used today if i were continuing with that Author of the Day business: F. Scott Fitzgerald was next, here’s scott & zelda:

the things i’ve seen in january….

yes, Magneto IS in that Nativity scene. as well as a dinosaur. earlier today the baby Jesus was playing in an unoccupied terrarium with two sheep a helicopter, and a cow…..

christmas stuff (photos)