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So much catch up to do: I ALMOST FORGOT TO SHOW YOU THIS. (Because you know, that's how I am, getting books everyday. OMG! SO NOT THAT WAY!)  I have galleys of How to Knit a Heart Back Home! 

Isn't it gorgeous? And you know what? Those sweaters up there? They're mine. I made them, with my own two hands. The needles she's using are mine, and the swatch she's "knitting" from his sweater is one I made. That's the original Cade sweater there, on the right (now given away as a prize, must make another one), and that yellow one is my favorite yellow sweater (the pattern comes with the book). I sent the sweaters off to New York, where they played around in a photo shoot and then came home to me. I love it.

(And do you see that line under my name? I'm an "author of." That's thrilling to me.)

Also, I seem to have lost that sweater now. I have no idea where it is, which makes me too sad to think about, so if you see it, send it home?

GIVEAWAY:

And to get myself to the post office (boy, I have a lot of things to mail), I'm going to give two of these away. Yep. I'll give one to a random commenter on this post, and I'll give one to someone randomly drawn from my mailing list (subscribe here). 

YAY! Like, super big, hollered from the rooftops, YAY! 

OTHER NEWS:

I had a great reading at Llama Llama Knit in Novato, and the women there were awesome. Hi ladies!

 

And LOOK at their store dog, Maebe. I just died over this gal.

 

It was a hot night, and you can see how red I get when I'm warm:

Aileen was a doll, and also brought champagne, always a lovely thing to bring. I heart champagne. 

Speaking of heat, we've had a mini heat wave in the Bay Area, and I couldn't stay in our hot house yesterday, so I drove to the coast. I went to Duartes and worked for a long time. I was definitely the only person who was working on a computer, so I felt a wee bit funny, but I had olallieberry pie after my oysters: 

I also managed to say hello to Lynn, my favorite waitress. I didn't know if she'd remember me from when I worked there in the winter, but she did. "You. You're a writer. You sat at table nine." We'd had a lovely chat then, and I wanted to give her the book, since my ranchers come straight out of conversations I've head in the old restaurant (Duartes = Tillie's!). 

Then I went tidepooling for a long while. My phone died, and it was really nice to be completely cut off (until my car started overheating. That was a little worrisome, but it worked out). 

It was glorious. This is what came in when I was out there:

And now, the heat wave is broken, and as I sit at my desk, my toes are cold, and I'm glad.

Also: Urban Fauna alerted me that their two year anniversary is this weekend, and they're having a sale! Goodie bags! (My book will be given away at some point, too, and that's cool.)

I feel like I'm going to be playing catch up all day. I stayed up late last night, so I slept till almost eleven this morning, and as soon as I fully woke up, I started running the mental lists of everything I have to do today. Lala's been working a temp job for about a month now, and while it was really difficult financially while she was out of work, it sure was nice to have her doing all the Life Errands. I've put off everything I could possibly put off until this week, and I can't put them off anymore. The animals need food! Lala needs her bass fixed! I HAVE TO GET A SMOG CHECK (also, someone stole my month tag off my car, so it looks like I'm trying to cover up the fact that my registration is overdue. I'm not, Officer, I swear!).

Also, I have a crap-ton of writing to get done. Where does that fit today? I don't know! But it will. I'll get it all done. But it was more important to say hello to you than start on it all, so hi. Leave a comment for a chance to win! Woot! I'll draw winners on Saturday.

READING:

(Oh, I also have a reading/spinning demo at Rabbit Ears in Kensington on Saturday at 2pm (7253 Fairmount). Would love to see you!

Reentry to the week is hard, isn't it? I have to do it a little earlier than most. Sunday night is when I have my "Monday," and by the time most of you are heading for work, I'm heading home for bed.

And we're all tired, aren't we? Yep.

What would perk us up? What about a little dream-weaving, eh? I'm not one of those people who fantasizes about what I'd do if I won the lottery. It's not something I think I shouldn't do; in fact, I think it does us all good to have a little mind-wander. I just never remember to do it.

So I'm going to let myself imagine for a minute, and you should do the same. What if we won the lottery? And let's say we hit it big, and had the money to do all the obvious things: invest wisely, pay off debt, buy houses for everyone in the family. What would we want once those things were paid for? (Think selfishly. You've already helped lots of people out. That's the game.)

1. An iPad for Lala. (That's silly, huh? But I sometimes feel guilty that I got one with book money in order to write books, and she doesn't have one yet (so this counts as selfish because I'd feel better). She should have one.)

2. A yellow Smartcar! And a red Mini! I can't choose, so how about both?  

3. A second home in Venice in the north part of Cannaregio.

4. A third home in the Avenues of San Francisco (somewhere to go when I get too hot in the Oakland heat. I'm a delicate flower, yo).

5. Um. Oooh! A maid! No more cleaning the litterbox! Boy, do I hate that job.

6. Cashmere yarn. Lots of it.

That's all I've got. Apparently I don't think about it much because I don't have much of a list (I honestly thought when I started writing things down I'd have a hundred things. Huh.)

What do YOU want to buy with your winnings?

On the plane flying home from Orlando, I sat next to the awesome Carolyn Jewel (who had been up for not one but TWO Rita's (the Oscar of romance)), and while she wrote (or didn't write) a sexy scene (I was working so hard not letting my eyes accidentally fall on her laptop screen that now I don't remember what she said she was writing), I finished going over page proofs for HOW TO KNIT A HEART BACK HOME. Page proofs are awesome in that they are the very last time you'll lay hands on your book. This is it! You're pushing the baby bird right out into traffic!

And you always find some typos that have made it through your own editing, that make it past your agent and your editor, past copy-edits and all the way to this last draft. Now, say that I noticed things in my copy-edits that needed to be added, and say I wrote them in by hand to be changed. Now, it is NOT the production editor's job to decipher my sloppy handwriting (which I do try to make clear, I promise). They add to the text what they are told (by me) to add, and that's that. I take the blame for the below HYSTERICAL mistake.

When I read that my heroine had a vapid heartbeat, I almost choked on my peanuts. It's true, my Vs do look like Rs. I'd never noticed that before. A vapid heartbeat! Oh, lord! I've known people with one of those!

In another spot, I'd added a sentence about the pattern she'd been making. That R and N certainly smoosh up close in my handwriting, and the text read that she was knitting from a patter. (Both vapid and patter obviously passed the spell-check test.) (I just wrote "past the spell-check test." I am at word overload. Please forgive the other inevitable typos in this post as I mock myself.)

Carolyn and I started howling about vapid patter, to the point that she said, "Watch! I'm putting it in my book! Right now!" Clickety click click, and she did.  

So today, I put it in my third novel because it happened to fit beee-yoo-tifully (and Carolyn practically dared me to). (That novel is coming along smashingly, by the way. I keep expecting the other shoe to drop, but it seems to be going well so far. Yippee!)

When I get a copy of Carolyn's book, she'll sign the page with vapid patter on it. And I'll sign that page in her copy of MY book.

And I here and now challenge all y'all book-writers to sneak the phrase in. It's now A Thing. Anyone who does it will get a shiny badge WITH GLITTER from me. Promise. (And when you read book three and hit that phrase, you'll think, "Huh? That sounds awfully familiar…")

Pass it on! Quick link to this post: http://bit.ly/a9Z5CJ

And the winners are:

Handspun: Anne (maplecorners)

Signed book: Ruth (rutababe)

Signed book: Mary McM.

I'll be emailing all of you tomorrow for addresses! Congrats, and woot! More winners soon, I'm sure. xoxo

I just wrote a very boring blog, which I've erased so that you don't have to bear reading it. You're welcome. I'm not even censoring myself or acting in a self-preserving manner–it was neither inflammatory nor racy. It was just boring.

So instead, I'll tell you this:

The Sharpie Liquid Pencil(erasable, turning to permanent in 36 hours) is not the life-changer that I thought it might be. But it IS a surprisingly satisfying implement with which to edit. I hate scribbling changes and then instantly changing my mind. Adding a sentence, and then hating half of it. This is PERFECT for that, because it's dark like a pen (I wish it came in colors) but erases cleanly. I was slightly let down by it, but then I realized that was because it is, in fact, as smooth-flowing as a pen, and I hadn't expected that. I'd expected the normal pencil scritch, which wasn't there. But I'm still pretty stoked about it.

Ha! And this isn't the boring blog I erased (erased as if it were PENCIL, people). Imagine what I saved you from!

(I haven't forgotten about the drawing — I'll do that tonight! Leave a comment in the previous post or sign up for my email list (to the right) to enter.)

I'm writing. Writing, writing, writing. It's hard for me sometimes to think of anything else. Ask the long-suffering Lala or my poor sisters about that. I am officially the most boring person in the world, as when I'm away from the desk I'm either working on how to get back to it or how to stay away from it without guilt (answer to the last: big long naps, that's how, under the guise of Avoiding the Cold from Hell that's going around–must rest!).

Sister Bethany pointed out that lately I write about writing, and seldom about knitting. Good point! See above.

But I have been knitting a bit. And spinning. Oh, Lisa Souza, with your perfect, perfect batts. Really, when I'm spinning her stuff, I don't want to touch another piece of fiber that she hasn't prepared, ever. I spun a lot of this: 

It's 90% super-fine merino, with these little glints of colored tencel, red and yellow and pink, that gleam through, and it made a nice DK-weight 2-ply. I made this cowl (super-simple free Ravelry link) out of the first batt: 

I wish you could really see how pretty it is, with those little sparkles of color here and there. The camera doesn't do it justice. SO SOFT. And I still have two batts left (now spun, they just need to be washed and hung).

It's funny, this is the first yarn that I've ripped in a long time. I tried three different kinds of scarves before realizing it needed to be a cowl. And I knew it would come to me–I just had to keep trying.

DRAWING – FREE STUFF

Hey, in apology for not being all knittified like I used to be, I feel like giving things away! I'm going to draw one random winner from my mailing list (not on it? I never spam; join up there to the right) and I'll send the winner an autographed copy of HOW TO KNIT A LOVE SONG. If you have it already, you can either have me make it out to a friend of yours, or have me make it out to you and pass your copy on to someone else!

Ooh, hang on a sec, it seems I'm feeling REALLY generous. Again, from the mailing list, I'll randomly draw a name, and that person will win enough of the Lisa Souza yarn that I made to make a cowl, just like that one up there. 

And just for fun, I'll randomly draw a winner from the comments of this post and send an autographed book out that way, too. Just tell me what's keeping you from YOUR knitting right now. 

Yeehaw! Fun! I'll draw on Wednesday.