true adventures of awaking hearts

Hi all, how was your day?

Mine was filled with some excitement, but mainly A LOT of work. The other editorial assistant on my team recently left (and I miss her very, very much), so I’ve been helping her supervisor as well as my supervisor. Another editor on my team is leaving tomorrow for her Christmas vacation, so I’ll be finishing some stuff up for her while she’s gone. So, like I said, VERY busy! It makes the day go by quickly, though, which is a good thing when you have a week until your vacation…

This morning one of my coworkers emailed me this newsletter from School Library Journal. I pretty much almost passed out when I saw that the title of the email was “The Skinny on Video Games, ‘Brightly Woven’ (a new fantasy) Shines, Sherlock Holmes,” and then nearly fell out of my chair to see two really wonder reviews from teen readers. I tend to put a little more stock in reader reviews than publication reviews, if only because I care more about what my audience thinks and how they respond to something I’ve written. Also? Those reviews are incredibly thoughtful and smart (everyone in the office was very impressed with them). Anyway, that was just a very lovely way to start my morning. Thank you to everyone who emailed it to me or sent me a Twitter or Livejournal message about it! March still feels like a lifetime away, and I know I really shouldn’t be going bananas about publicity until February…. so, uh, please don’t forget about Brightly Woven before then!

(By the way, Papa Bracken feels SO vindicated about the reviewers’ map comments, by the way. He is a Big Time Fan of maps in Fantasy books and has been offering to draw mine since he read a rough draft of BW.)

Anyway, I’m off to to work on a proposal and do some reading. I’m currently splitting my time between re-reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Beautiful Creatures. Both are incredibly difficult to read on the train, by the way. The paperback readers are constantly giving me strange looks.

Originally published at alexandra bracken. You can comment here or there.

You guys, thank you for the kind words over at the Holiday Love Meme. <3<3<3 What're you trying to do, make me cry or something? :D

Oooh, look, it's the trailer for the new Robin Hood movie, which is coming out in 2010 and stars Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett and is directed by Ridley freakin' Scott. I'm there. I'm so there.

And there's a clip out from the Sherlock Holmes movie. *checks the calendar* I can see this movie now? How about now?

ETA: IRON MAN 2 TRAILER omg omg omg ( cut for spoilers )
It's much, much too soon for all this flailing about. I will stop this nonsense at once.

*flail*
/ETA

Via camille_is_here, Silent Monks singing Halleluia. Hee!

Three SPN recs, all gen:

You Think This is Hard? Trying Being the Michael Sword by maskedfangirl, Glee/SPN crossover. Sue Sylvester in the Kripkeverse. HEE!

Go read The Silence of a Summer Morning by wanttobeatree. I won't give too much away -- it's a terrific OFC, outsider pov on the Winchesters, the aftermath of Detroit. By the end of it, I was crying, no kidding.

Built for Hurricanes by scorpiod1 captures Jo Harvelle so vividly, filling in the blanks of canon.
She’s learned a new method of communicating: shotguns full of rock salt, an iron knife in her small hand. That’s all she needs. Jo is a hunter. So she hunts.

Plus, not a fic rec, but it made me happy, aesc has a gorgeous picspam of Castiel.

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Loranth's sister set a date for her wedding. The invitation is for both of us. He isn't even considering not taking me. And his mother is, according to them both, not an idiot. One look at me, and she's going to know I'm not just his "friend."

Loranth now has seven months to find a way to tell his mom about us or his sister's wedding will do it for him.

I understand this is a rather huge dilemma as far as he's concerned, and as the date looms closer, his dread will grow -- and I don't want to be insensitive to his feelings -- but damn if I can't stop smiling.

I have never been a worse boyfriend than I am in this moment.

Eh, no one's perfect, and if this is my most profound trespass, I'm doing okay.

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Dear HP wiki: your assumptions that every female character in the HP books will take on her (future) husband's surname upon marriage is seriously starting to grate. Cut it the fuck out already. Also to be cut out posthaste: not distinguishing between book and movie canon a lot of the time. I should not have to dig through half a dozen pages to find, by accident, an offhand confirmation of what I'd known in the first place; namely, that it's never confirmed in the books if Draco's actually taken the Dark Mark.

Yeah, I've been doing rather stupid amounts of "research" and such for this damned fic, trying to see if my ideas fit in canon and all, and harvesting bits and pieces of canon for my own nefarious purposes. I think I can fit the story in with/around and/or extrapolate from canon, as long as I sort of handwave the epilogue away, and since that was the preferred reaction of fandom to the epilogue anyway, last I looked at it (which, admittedly, was something like three years ago, and even then briefly, but still), works out fine! \o//

(Really, I say "stupid", but it's HP, research is often expected and applauded. It's not like I spent hours of my life pondering which websites would survive if the internet went down in a big ball of zombie-fuelled flames. Or trying to get Google drunk enough to forget I ever asked it if one can carbon date a vampire. (... I was pondering a Firefly/Buffy crossover, shush.))

Because books are not made in a vacuum

Because you must pay the author

Because you must pay the editor who works with the author

And the Managing Editor and copyeditor who work with the editor

And the designer for their services

And sometimes the outside artist for THEIR services

And don't forget the publicists and the marketing department

And the money that goes into their plans to put the book out there

Or the production department, who must work with paper/binding/trim size/the plants

(Did I mention plant costs?)

(Or even all the silly little costs involved in keeping a business going?)

Books cost a lot of money to produce if you're in the business to produce them well. The stance of Random House is now, I believe, that ebooks are just another format of the books they've bought the rights to, much like a paperback is a different form of a hardcover. I'm not going to really get into that particular tangled web, but I did want to mention that their logic actually makes sense to me, knowing that the text and design from the hardcover is flowed into paperback, and the same is done when it comes to creating an ebook file. Do you guys consider an ebook a "book"? Yes, there are no printing costs, but there is still labor involved and author advances to be earned out. Hence why $9.99 for an ebook and authors going to secondary sources/publishers for their ebook publications are sending publishers into a tailspin of panic. They're trying to regain control of the market right now before they find themselves in a world of hurt in the future if/when ebooks do become the norm. In reality, the ebook market still isn't really being driven by consumers--it's being driven by retailers like Amazon and B&N, who are trying to control the market and flow as much revenue into their digital reading devices as humanly possible.

That said, the above is me talking as someone who works in the industry and understands how bad things could get. As an author Random House's recent moves don't really affect me or anyone who has been published within the last ten years...

If you're interested in reading more, Richard Curtis has a great post.

P.S. I also worry that if lower prices like $9.99 and $12 for hardcovers stick, it might mean lower advances for authors as the amount of books sold might not necessarily go up with a lowered price.

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This is my thread at the holiday love meme. (Yep, I caved. Might as well be right up front with that link).

The cable company is raising our rates, the city's transit authority is cutting train lines and discount programs for students, and I'm muttering nothing nice under my breath right now about a certain senator from Connecticut.

Criminal Minds continues to be awesome. I also think it's time I caught up on Lost so I added S5 to the netflix queue but it's on very long wait. Band of Brothers is in the queue as well (because I see no way out of watching that one *G*), plus I have more Psych to watch.

Via stakebait, a lion, a tiger, and a bear who are bffs.

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Three days of filming boils down to above.

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marag gave the head's up that John Rogers posted TNT's promo for Leverage season 2.5 on his blog. (spoilers obv).

More Leverage! There is going to be more Leverage! In January!

JANUARY IS HOARDING THE SQUEE! *shakes January until new eps of shows fall out of it*

\o/\o/\o/

Due to the request of my nocturnal roommate, New Year's will start at 3 pm, rather than noon. So, 3pm - 2:30 am. All other info remains the same. I will be posting a reminder about the party as it comes closer.

recently posted to theFwoosh.com's CustomCon 24, this series reimagines such classic DC Comics villains as Bizarro, Captain Cold, Sinestro and more for a Nictorian/steampunk setting.

see more characters and pictures at the entry's page.

[Vampire Knight] 1

Zero and Yuuki-1

[Fullmoon wo Sagashite] 1

Mizuki-1

[Soul Eater] 4

Maka- 3
Kid- 1

TOTAL- 6

Preveiw:



Here! at colored_harmony

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Well, after nearly a decade since the last, Mikey's New Year's Bash is returning. Over the last eight years, I've been living in different states, in tiny apartments or in other people's homes, and had neither the space nor the resources to host what had been a tradition since before I could drink alcohol... legally.

Anyway, the bitch is back, and she's gonna rock us hard as we ring in the new decade. So, here's the details.

WHAT: Mikey's New Year's Bash
WHEN: December 31st, 2009: 12 noon - 2:30 am
WHERE: 125 Hammell Place, Maywood, NJ 07607
WHY: Because it's awesome

Since the party is going to run for over twelve hours and I'm on a limited income, snackage will be provided, but meals will be either a pot luck or ordered in. I happen to know a bad-ass diner down the street that caters. If we order in, everyone can either pay for their own food or we can split it evenly. You guys let me know what you want to do. Majority will rule. I will also be providing some alcoholic goodness, but by all means, please contribute to the bar. Wine, Bailey's, hard liquor, whatever. Bring it on. You can take home leftovers if you want, but a good party is like sex: it's important the remain well-lubricated for the duration. For our non-drinking friends and designated drivers, there will be plenty of soda, juice, and water.

There will be ample street parking, but cars will be ticketed after 3 am, so if you plan on crashing, I have to know ahead of time. People traveling from out of state will get priority. Also, I will need an idea of how much space I need to make (translation: how much cleaning I have to do), so please RSVP as soon as possible.

There will be music, movies, and Mortal Kombat. Lots and lots of Mortal Kombat. And I've created the entire cast of Avatar in the character generator. Except the Cabbage Merchant. It will be awesome.

Any questions? Now's the time.