Start spreading the news (again)

I'm getting questions about how many kids I have and their names, which means I'm not bragging nearly enough. Max is four and incredibly clever, witty, funny, smart, creative. He loves playing pretend and has invented a series of superpowers for himself that is quite complex and frankly intimidating. (e.g. he can shoot castles, ceilings, mountains, and Juggernauts at people. Run for your lives!) Maggie is one and I am constantly astounded at her beauty. I could watch her waddle around all day long. And do. And she has a terrific sense of humor. In the interest of their privacy, I've decided not to post photos of them online anymore. That was a hard call, because I want to show them off all the time, but I don't want to regret something later.

Dean and I are making a last minute trip to New York this weekend for Comicon! Our first comicon. I'll be speaking with Holly Black on Sunday at 11 am about our upcoming graphic novels for young readers ("graphic" meaning "with pictures" not the other definition--I'm still getting shocked emails about this---"I can't believe you're writing a graphic novel! For shame!"). We got our first copy of rapunzel's revenge and I can't stop tingling about it. It's so freakin' gorgeous. Nate Hale is a friggin' genius, and Bloomsbury did a tremendous job putting it together. It's turned out as beautiful and better than I could've hoped. It comes out in August, so more on that in the months to come.

Rose commented on the last post about her current trials in rewriting, "If I throw the whole ms against the wall tonight, will I come back inthe morning to find only the important parts still stuck up there?" And I have to say, I love this idea! Because I've been wanting to fling my own ms against the wall. And I would've, several times yesterday, if it weren't on my laptop. You know that guy on Sesame Street who is trying to compose a song and beats his head against the keyboard? Me. That's me. About a dozen times yesterday, I declared, "I quit. I can't be a writer anymore. I'm washed up. I stink. It's not worth it. This is torture. Enough already!" It's this fourth Bayern book. Ug, ergh, argh, rats! Blech. Ick. Fwench blegh blah burgh, nah! Rose, maybe I'll try your suggestion. And insure the laptop first.

And I don't know about the rest of you out there in the northern hemisphere, but usually we expect spring about now! There's snow on the ground at this moment. Hmph. It's enough to make one justify the eating of copious amounts of chocolate.