Surrender, Dorothy

Prop It Up and Stay On

When we moved to Chateau Travolta in 2008, the housing market was on the verge of tanking. Then it tanked, and the For Sale signs started popping up like dandelions. Some of those houses took years to sell, which made me realize just how stupid it was to take on two mortgages at once when we sold This Old House to move here.

This week there are ladders all over my neighborhood, as the houses built in 1978 have begun to show their age. Shingles pushed well beyond their limits topple from  roofs. The boards on the sides of houses are torn away and replaced. The aluminium ladders sparkle in the May sunshine. 

As I jogged past a pile of boards pocked with bent nails, I started thinking about the kitchen remodel I've not blogged about. It's not that I'm not proud of it -- I am -- it's so pretty -- but I really only feel comfortable blogging home improvements we did with our own little hands, and though the demolition was difficult and Beloved has been moonlighting as a drywall installer, a plumber and an electrician for the past two months while I just took a crowbar and pried off floor tiles and anything else that pissed me off, for some reason, I just didn't want to blog about it because there were so many parts we paid someone else to do, and then for some reason that feels braggy in a way "look at the pocket door Beloved installed" doesn't. This may be justified only in my head. Or worrying about bragging in a Pinterest world may be ridiculous. Or I may be a huge hypocrite because I brag about my writing here (or at least that's what the About Me page feels like, but dude, I'm a professional writer, not a professional kitchen person). I'm conflicted, clearly.

Anyway, I was thinking about all that stuff while jogging by these piles of wood in my neighborhood and feeling so happy my neighbors were fixing up their houses instead of selling them. And feeling happy they had both the money and the desire to maintain their houses so they don't fall apart. And feeling happy and proud that we are taking care of Chateau Travolta and will leave it a better place than we found it. I wrote on BlogHer earlier this week about not toppling your blocks, and ever since then I've been really focused on how important it is to pay attention to your mind and body and environment and address problems right away, before they metastasize into something more. 

Maybe it came from growing up in a house my father built perched on the edge of land my family farmed. I like taking root, propping up and staying on. I'm glad my neighbors do, too. There is beauty in that. 

Children's Book Week Giveaway Hop: THE OBVIOUS GAME

It's Children's Book Week! Yay!

And to celebrate, I'm giving away a copy of THE OBVIOUS GAME and joining a bunch of other great authors and bloggers on a blog hop. (Although teens aren't really "children," YA falls in this category.)

 

In order to enter to win, please fill out the form below. Also! If you want to read THE OBVIOUS GAME but don't have a book budget, don't forget to ask your library to order it. Or if you just want to be nice, ask your library to order it. I'm not afraid to beg you to ask your library to order it. All you have to do is go up to the librarian (check to make sure the library doesn't already have it, of course), and ask them to order it! Aren't libraries fantastic? Don't forget high school libraries! And then, once you asked your library to order it, email me at ritajarens(at)gmail.com and I'll send you a signed book plate for your troubles.

 

RT Booklover's 2013: Fun & Weird

Last week, I attended the RT Booklover's conference in Kansas City. I wasn't sure what to expect, as it's primarily a conference for romance novelists, and I quit Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star, because there was too much sex. I'm not much of a romance reader. But, wow, there are a lot of romance readers, and they read a lot of books, so all hail anyone who's supporting authors, right?

This guy? Is a romance novel cover model (Band Name of the Day) and Mr. RT 2009, or so he reported when I insisted he flex while hugging fellow author Jen from People I'd Like to Punch in the Throat. At the welcome party, I noticed a bunch of very fit-looking men walking around with tshirts that said Men of Romance. I asked around only to find a) people like Fabio really exist and b) they are super into being cover models. And some of them are actually 6'3" Adonis-types in real life, too. CRAZY! I always thought, I guess, that those people were drawings.

Examples of cover models. Never wearing shirts. Never, never, never wearing shirts.

At Club RT, a venue in which authors were supposed to sit so readers could find them (I never did see one reader and would not recommend participating -- I sat with plenty of better-known-and-actual-correct-genre authors and they didn't get many readers, either), I met new adult author Lynne Tolles, who packed her own blood in werewolf, vampire, zombie and demon varieties. She was really nice despite having so much blood on her person. I brought bookplates. Que horor.

For some reason, the "A" authors were separated from the rest of the expo by a chasm of shiny cement. It is not at all intimidating to be sitting around with 299 other authors hoping someone will buy your book. Despite having a sad teenager book in a swath of steamy cowboy and werewolf romance novels, I did manage to sell a few -- and I AM DAMN PROUD.

The next day found me at a hotel in the Plaza sitting next to the author of steamy Navy SEALS romance novels. Her son, as she told me, is a Navy SEAL. She also told others. Nobody but me seemed to find that connection disturbing. Very nice lady, though.

When not awkwardly avoiding beefy cover models with waist-length blond hair or watching E.L. James pop out of the woodwork and deny ever self-publishing in the new adult panel (true story -- I was there), I attended most panels in the young adult and new adult tracks, and they were excellent. I met authors whose books I'd read and whose books I'm eager to read and got so much excellent advice about marketing and the writing process and keeping my head up that it made the experience worth it.

But it was still cuh-razy.