Friday, April 19, 2013

Weekend Reading: The Holy Shit, I Need a Beer Edition

So, yeah. What a week. I'm going to keep this short because as the title says, holy shit, I need a beer.

First, thank you all for your nice and helpful comments on the last post. My awesome boss decided I should start my weekend early and therefore not have to deal with any crap today and sent me home at lunch time. I had promised Petunia I'd be the one to pick her up today, though, so I went to the mall instead. I had two margaritas with lunch, bought a few things (including an outfit that I think will work with the beautiful cardigan from Stitch Fix #2- pictures later if I'm right), and then sat in some surprisingly comfortable chairs and read my book on my Kindle, feeling incredibly grateful for many different reasons.

Even with the afternoon of decompressing, I just need happy links right now. I'm guessing maybe you do, too. So here's what I have:

First, the book I was reading is called Constellation Games, by Leonard Richardson. I'm only about halfway through, but so far I am really enjoying it, and it was just the thing to distract me this week. Also, I am really amused that I find myself thinking that the author really nails the alien voice, and makes his extraterrestrials realistic. I mean, how would I know?

Anyway, if you like Sci-Fi, I recommend it.

Next, this video from the NZ parliament after passing a bill for same-sex marriage makes me cry happy tears. Make sure you watch until at least the 1:30 mark:



For my readers who are unfamiliar with it, that is Pokarekare Ana, a Maori love song. I think it is beautiful that the speaker allowed it to be sung all the way through.

Continuing in a similar, but far more bittersweet vein- here is the video of the crowd at Yankee Stadium singing along to Sweet Caroline:



For my international readers who do not know the history here: Boston fans sing Sweet Caroline at Boston's Fenway Park during every home game. Boston and New York are huge rivals, and generally Yankee fans hate the Red Sox and Red Sox fans hate the Yankees. The best analogy I can think of for this gesture would be if the New Zealand fans sang Waltzing Matilda before an All Black game.

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Edited to add: Mr. Snarky showed me two more cool things tonight:

Jump Rope Girl:



And Michael Shainblum has some cool time lapse video of San Diego.

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Ginger at Ramble, Ramble put up some happy links earlier this week- check those out, too. Definitely watch the one about wringing out a washcloth in space.

Finally, I was so overwhelmed by news and work this week, that I didn't do a very good job publicizing the special Xist Publishing ran with The Zebra Said Shhh: the eBook was free for a few days. I'm sorry if you missed it! The benefit of that was that a lot more people tried it out, and reviewed it. It is up to 18 reviews now, all but one being 4 or 5 stars. The reviews are nice to read. It makes me happy to hear that other people are enjoying my little bedtime story.

The best review of all, though, was The Bean Mom's review, in which she says the book has been a great sight reading exercise for her daughter. That makes me very, very happy.

And, no doubt thanks to all the good reviews, the eBook is currently in the top ten Kindle children's eBooks about zoos and about bedtime.

This book publishing experience has been amazing. When I decided to send my story off to publishers, I had no idea how good it would feel to see other people enjoy it.

And on that happy note, I am going to sign off and go have a beer. And fold laundry.

I hope you all can find a way to release the stress of this week, and I fervently hope that next week is really, really boring.

1 comment:

  1. First of all, thank you for the links to happy things! Because yes, this last week was a hella crappy crazy one.

    Second, congrats on all the great news about your Zebra Said Shhhh book! So so awesome. Will you write a blog post someday about the whole publishing process-how you found a publisher and signed on, what decisions were made? (Just curious =) )

    Third and fourth--because I'm catching up on blog posts here--THANK YOU for you shout-out to my "Snow's Daughter" story! Very sweet of you, and I'm glad you liked it =) Fourth, re your post on "Semi-coherent ramblings that will convince you I am more than a little weird"--no, I do that all the time, too. That is, have little flashes of scenes sparked by random phrases or events or thoughts. I think it means that you're a fiction writer =) I think your children's book already demonstrates that. . . but the ideas in your "idea notebook" might lead to something more.

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