Friday Funstuffs

1. Go to Google Search.
2. Search "answer to life, the universe, and everything"
3. Enjoy the Google staff's humor.

A Random Note on Information Usage

It's really creepy when you take the time and really watch your blog stats/audience with an eagle's eye. I check this blog's stats one minute, and five minutes later I checked again. I had one view, and the numbers on the various data told me that it's a German using a Windows machine running Firefox.

That's the power of tracking data.

It's really useful, say, once you're published and actually looking at what your potential market, but still . . .

Scared yet?

And the Eagle is Flying!

I'm late to start Camp Nanowrimo (eight days late, to be precise) so I've got a lot of words to make up, but I'm happy to report that by the end of Day Nine, my first day of writing, I've ended up with a starting word count of . . .

[insert drumroll]

5,500 words!

[And the crowd goes wild . . . not. A girl can dream, eh?]

Still a long way to go, of course, but definitely not a shabby start, either.

Are you doing Camp Nanowrimo? If so, how behind/on target/ahead are you?

***EDIT: For those of you who don't know about (Camp) Nanowrimo, you can check out the websites for more info: Camp Nanowrimo & Nanowrimo.

***

I also changed the blog layout to something a bit more festive--what do you think?

Dark Days Ahead . . . or Behind, Actually

I haven't updated the blog in a while. Mainly because I've been nervous about the prospect of waiting on the not-so-happily trigger-fingered agents to get back to me, but also because there hasn't been much going on in my life, other than summer university courses (Social Psych and American Geology--oh joy!).

Last night, however, that changed. I went to the Dark Days Tour stop in Columbus on Thursday, June 7th, and got a signed copy of Veronica Roth's Insurgent! While there, I also met, had pictures taken with, and got signatures from: Bethany Griffin, Aprilynne Pike, and Elizabeth Norris. Also, Rae Carson just happened to be there, so I got a signature from her, as well.

Double Veronica, Double the Fun: Veronica Roth and Me.

Me with Bethany Griffin, author of Masque of the Red Death, a re-imagining of Poe's classic short story.

Aprilynne Pike and Me.

And last but not least, Me with Liz Norris, author of Unraveling.

(All photos courtesy of my friend, Brian Bowers.)

In other news, all the waiting and not-writing of the querying process has gotten on my nerves to the point that I've started a new book! It's tentatively titled Codename Eagle Chick, and I'll have a pitch, synopsis, etc. out on it soon! I'm also participating in Camp Nanowrimo's June session, so drop me a line if you want to be writing buddies!