Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Feb 4, 2012, 8:26 pm
My attempts to learn Irish Gaelic are paying off, in that I have finished the eight Pimsleur lessons and feel pretty competent asking someone in Irish if they would like to drink wine or beer at my house. (Heaven help me if they want something besides wine or beer.) I've got a different set of CDs o...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Feb 3, 2012, 9:19 pm
I went to Books a Million yesterday, looking for a specific book, The Giant Thief by Tallerman (I find the author's name combined with that title amusing). Even though I hate the city, I drove into Oak Ridge because their BAM has a better selection than the Knoxville store. Also I wanted to visit Bi...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Jan 28, 2012, 4:33 pm
During the awful month last summer that I stayed in the hospital with Mom, I yearned for Clear Creek--less because I wanted to get outside in the July sun (although that was part of it), mostly because having the freedom to jaunt off to go hiking would mean a return to Life Before. But nothing retur...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Jan 24, 2012, 6:27 pm
I got a no today from Angry Robot, for those of you keeping track at home. Still, it was nice to be under consideration at that level. Remember the contemporary YA I wrote this past summer, Misfits? It's revised now and I sent the first batch of five queries out to agents Friday night. I've already ...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Jan 22, 2012, 6:27 pm
So, I may be getting a dog. I'm not pushing either way about this, but it's kind of weird how it worked out so if I get the dog, I'll figure it was Meant To Be and if I don't get the dog, I won't get a dog at all. Not yet, anyway. Friday afternoon at work I found my thoughts meandering, as they do (...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Jan 19, 2012, 7:13 pm
You know you can still send me your mailing address to kcshaw123 at gmail dot com and get a free Goldie bookmark. Just sayin. I've made it to lesson four in my Irish language CDs today. I'm going slowly because I have to repeat each lesson two or three times until I start to get it. It wasn't until ...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Jan 13, 2012, 9:05 pm
Right now, keeping my brain occupied is paramount. I don't want to wallow in grief. I haven't been doing much writing, but I've been reading up a storm, keeping myself busy at work, and I got some language CDs this week that I've started listening to in the car on my commute. I chose Irish Gaelic, b...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Jan 6, 2012, 11:44 am
Okay, my last post was grouchy and ill-mannered. "Goldie" is worth three bucks. Also, YOU CAN HAS A FREE BOOKMARK! My shipment of bookmarks just arrived, and they are awesome. Seriously, these are some nice bookmarks. If you'd like one, just email me your mailing address at kcshaw123 at gmail dot co...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Jan 6, 2012, 9:21 am
My steampunk novella, Goldie, releases today over at Musa. I thought it was supposed to be 99 cents--it's had 99 cents listed next to it since the page came up, my author workpage thingie they use had 99 cents listed from the beginning, but now that it's available, it costs $2.99. Not sure what's up...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Jan 3, 2012, 5:46 pm
This morning, while snowflakes fluttered past the windows, Mom died. I held her hand and told her how much I loved her. Several years ago she wrote a semi-autobiographical novel about her childhood called Afraid of the Moon, which eventually I'll get around to publishing. Here's a little excerpt tha...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Dec 31, 2011, 9:54 am
Things feel very unsettled for me right now. I don't know what to expect day to day with Mom's health, which makes it hard to plan for the immediate future. But my writing schedule is pretty well set for the year. Here's what I have coming up in 2012. January 6 My steampunk novella Goldie will be re...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Dec 29, 2011, 5:18 pm
I've flossed my teeth every single day this year. No matter what. Before, I was a floss-sometimes-but-not-every-day person. On January 1, 2011, the one new year's resolution I made was to floss daily. And I have! Even while I was staying with Mom at the hospital, I flossed every day. And now, I cann...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Dec 23, 2011, 8:33 pm
I guess I should update. It's not like I haven't been around, I just haven't had anything to say. Mom is not doing well. She's on hospice now, which is end-of-life in-home care. Yesterday a friend of hers visited and told me to call if I ever needed someone to sit with Mom while I napped or ran erra...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Dec 8, 2011, 8:28 pm
Oh, and after hitting "publish" on that long, rambling post a few minutes ago, I just remembered what I was actually going to post about. I have a cover for "Goldie," my steampunks Goldielocks novella being published in January by Musa. Isn't it beautiful? The trouble with ebooks is that it's not pr...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Dec 8, 2011, 8:16 pm
Goodreads is giving people badges for their pages if they meet their reading goals. That's it, I have to spend the next few weeks doing nothing but reading. Fortunately, that's precisely what I was wanting to do anyway. And I only have 21 books left to meet my goal! Mom's started back on her chemoth...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Nov 2, 2011, 10:30 am
It's Day Two of NaNo and I've written, um, 659 words. That includes the title and 'Chapter One.' But I work ten hours on Tuesdays and I'm still short on sleep, so I didn't have time to write last night. Tonight will hopefully be different! Still no word from Angry Robot. Still no word from Apex. On ...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Oct 30, 2011, 9:15 pm
We're down to three regular-sized bowls and one small decorative dessert bowl, because I am a klutz. I broke two bowls at once today. I should have known that stacking them while I took them out of the dishwasher was a bad idea. On the other hand, I put together our new coldframe (9 square feet!) wi...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Oct 27, 2011, 8:51 pm
Mom got out her camera and between the two of us, we managed to take some pictures (she has trouble with some fine motor skills like getting the fiddly little camera's memory card in and out of the slots; I have trouble with knowing what the hell you do with a camera at all). So here's a picture of ...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Oct 24, 2011, 11:37 am
I really wish I could post pictures I took on my phone. I'm sure there's a way to get the picture off my phone and onto the computer, but it would probably cost cash money and I already spent my money on the tree. Mom wanted a ginkgo tree in the worst way, so last week I called around and found a nu...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Oct 19, 2011, 8:19 pm
I found an outline for a younger middle grade book, an outline I wrote a year or two ago and promptly forgot all about. I looked it over today and thought, "Whoa! Here's my NaNo book!" It's the perfect NaNoWriMo project, light and silly. It's about a group of wild animals--a deer, a raccoon, and a f...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Oct 16, 2011, 9:05 pm
Halloween is coming up! Today Mom and I went shopping and bought some decorations--nothing fancy, just a garland of jack-o-lanterns for the porch, some cute little yard decorations (a ghost, a skull, and a jack-o-lantern, all smiling benignly), four big bags of candy, and a big orange bowl to put th...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Oct 14, 2011, 8:44 pm
Harry Connolly, author of the awesome Twenty Palaces series of kickass, blood-soaked urban fantasy, posted an announcement today. His publisher, Del Ray, has dropped the series after disappointing sales. A few months ago Moira J. Moore, whose Hero series is set in one of the most unique and unusual ...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Oct 10, 2011, 10:03 pm
I am pretty sure all my obligations are currently met. I returned the edits for The Weredeer and Blood and Ashes, and I read and critiqued a (very good) YA book for someone. And I still have three weeks before NaNoWriMo! I still want to finish the Misfits revisions. It's the first book I've written ...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Oct 8, 2011, 9:06 pm
Ugh. I was all set to start reading The Lightning Thief today, but when I got to work my coworker had brought me a mystery I'd expressed mild interest in last week. She'd finished reading it and gave it to me. Now I have to read it. The pressure! Mom wanted to watch a movie this evening, and as it h...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Oct 7, 2011, 9:00 pm
I worked at a used book store years ago, and one of the things I learned quickly was that it's okay to destroy and throw out books. We used to have many, many copies of certain popular books, too many to resell. We bought them for very little, so we'd end up pitching a lot of them. For paperbacks, t...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Oct 6, 2011, 9:34 pm
Today I ran into a friend I hadn't had a chance to really talk to for about ten years. She's working on a nonfiction project that sounds really, really good, and is planning to write fiction for NaNoWriMo. It was awesome to talk to her, and she also has a book blog that I would totally link to excep...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Oct 2, 2011, 8:34 pm
I know I whine a lot lately about how busy I am and how tired I get. I'm even finding myself insufferable. I want to smack myself lightly about the head and tell myself to suck it up. Lots of women have full-time jobs and take care of kids by themselves; compared to a bunch of kids, taking care of M...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Sep 30, 2011, 8:54 pm
Something's messed up when as a reward for finishing my Weredeer edits, I am allowing myself an evening to do revisions on Misfits. Of course, I had so much to do before I even turned on my computer this evening that I won't actually have time to open the Misfits file. I have to address the Blood an...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Sep 29, 2011, 9:36 pm
I am amused to see on Duotrope that as of today, Apex started sending out responses to writers who've been waiting even longer than I have. I like to think that Cat Valente (is she still editor for Apex?) happened upon my yesterday's post, was consumed with guilt for leaving poor me hanging so long-...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Sep 28, 2011, 10:27 pm
I haven't written many short stories in the last few years, I've managed to unload almost all of my older stories, novellas, and novels, and this summer has been crazy anyway so I haven't been keeping track of things as closely as I used to. But seriously, where are my responses? My Duotrope pending...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Sep 25, 2011, 7:58 pm
Okay, I will not complain about anything in this post. Nothing, not even the fact that my new tube of apricot facial scrub vanished before I was even able to use it once. *crickets* *more crickets* Um, I loved Stacey Kade's book The Ghost and the Goth so much that I rushed out and bought the sequel,...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Sep 23, 2011, 2:54 pm
I have a weird work schedule that involves Saturdays and evenings and getting most Thursdays off. Yesterday was a Thursday, and I was off work, which in the olden days meant I could have caught up on my writing/reading/editing/painting my bathroom bilious pink. But right now things are still in craz...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Sep 21, 2011, 9:04 am
It's weird, but except for a little cluster of agent rejections (four or five of them that for some reason all came on the same day), I got almost no writing-related emails all summer after Mom's stroke. That's good, since a rejection from, say, Angry Robot, would have hurt all out of proportion wha...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Sep 17, 2011, 10:20 pm
We've moved to our new house. We've moved! And for the first time since Mom's stroke on June 23, I will sleep in my very own bed tonight, on my very own sheets, with my very own pillow, and all my belongings around me. Yes, most of my belongings are in boxes or crammed into the closet for sorting la...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Sep 11, 2011, 9:15 pm
I meant to work on my Weredeer edits this weekend, but we're closing on the new house Thursday so the weekend was filled with last-minute packing and cleaning and perusing of paint swatch cards. Also, it rained a lot today and Mom wanted to drive around in the rain. Until we move, she's lamentably d...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Sep 4, 2011, 4:21 pm
I haven't updated or tweeted since I left for DragonCon because it turned out that the Westin Peachtree does not have free wifi access for guests. I wasn't able to check my email for days! Not that I had any emails when I got back, but it's the principle of the thing. Anyway, I did have a littl...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Sep 1, 2011, 9:00 pm
I spent the day going going going. Not only did Mom have a doctor's appointment and her weekly labwork today, but I had to get ready for DragonCon. Getting ready, in my case, included washing the car, doing laundry, cleaning Mom's bathroom, getting all her pills set out for the time I'm gone so she'...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Aug 28, 2011, 7:54 pm
Mom and I were planning to go to DragonCon together this Labor Day. We have our passes and the hotel room booked. Mom, however, doesn't want to try to go--she gets tired easily now and would be so worn out from the drive down that she thinks she wouldn't be able to enjoy the con. But she wants me to...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Aug 27, 2011, 8:49 am
The days are rolling along so fast I can't keep up. I didn't even realize I hadn't posted for weeks. I got a new laptop, too, so I have no excuse. I liked my little Asus eee PC netbook so much, but it was starting to really tear up--garbage screens occasionally, the second keyboard is going out...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Aug 7, 2011, 8:55 pm
I finished Misfits tonight. It's just under 86,000 words. That's a lot more than I intended, but I'm sure I can cut 5,000 words easily and probably 10,000 words if necessary. I like it. It's not perfect, and I want to set it aside for a while to ripen while I work on other things, but I like it. And...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Aug 3, 2011, 1:23 pm
The situation: 1. The house Mom and I rent together has stairs, and after her stroke she has a lot of trouble with stairs. 2. We're staying with her sister, my aunt, until we can buy/rent a house all on one level. 3. I have keys to my aunt's house. 4. I forgot those keys today. 5. At about noon toda...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Jul 28, 2011, 9:35 pm
I'm closing in on the end of Misfits. I'm guessing it'll top out at 75,000 words, which is a bit on the long side for a YA novel but not ridiculously long. I'm 68k words in right now. Writing it has been strange. I became obsessed with it a week before Mom had her stroke, and it was only natural for...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Jul 23, 2011, 3:19 pm
Mom's home from the hospital as of a few days ago, although "home" right now is her sister's house. I'm staying in my cousin's room (and I love love love her bathroom, which is like my favorite room in the whole wonderful house--when I grow up and have my own house, its bathroom will be like that on...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Jul 15, 2011, 1:07 pm
My paranormal romance/fantasy novel, The Taste of Magic, is now available as an ebook from Etopia Press! I love the cover, and this is a seriously fun book. It's the one I wrote back in, hmm, 2008 I think--in fact, if I remember correctly, it was my NaNoWriMo book that year. I wish I were in the pos...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Jul 14, 2011, 4:45 pm
I asked for and received permission to post details about what's been keeping me away from the internet for so long. My last post was vague because I didn't want to share information that concerned others--specifically, as is probably pretty obvious, my mom, who is a private person. Anyway, last mon...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Jun 26, 2011, 1:05 pm
Rather than have people think I stepped down a manhole and disappeared, let me post very quickly and very obscurely. One of my close family members has had a mild stroke and is in the hospital. I've been staying with her. I'll probably not be posting here for a while since I don't have internet acce...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Jun 17, 2011, 10:35 pm
I got an idea for a new book on the way home from work. I think it'll be fun to write when I get around to it, but it's not ready to write yet. I have an idea, not a story--certainly nothing resembling a plot. By the time I got home, though, I had worked out the main character's problems and how he'...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Jun 14, 2011, 10:54 pm
As my use of Twitter goes up, my blogging goes down. Or maybe I've just run out of things to say that take more than 140 characters. That would explain why I haven't written any short stories for so long. Still not finished with Bloodhound. As I recall, I had the same problem with Bell-Men when I wa...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Jun 10, 2011, 8:04 pm
I'm thinking today might be some kind of official catch-up day for agents. I had two responses to queries I sent so long ago I couldn't even figure out which book one of them was about. They were both form rejections, not much to my surprise. I've got a bad headache (although not as bad as it was, s...
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Kate S. posted an article on Noisy Typewriter - Jun 5, 2011, 10:20 pm
I now have a contract and a set of edits to work on. In fact, I've been concentrating on the edits all day and I'm only halfway done. I shouldn't have been so hasty with my email. I've decided to name my self-publishing "company" Rain Daisy Books. Rain Daisy is the name I picked out years ago for my...
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