LauraJUnderwood
Silly Author Person
And may it be a year of great things for everyone out there.
Mine has started out fairly well. This is the first Christmas in three years that I and my family have not been struck down with some illness.
The Christmas Day Gathering of the Clan was wild and crazy. With the nieces all growing up and getting hitched, and some of them now having children of their own, we crammed over 20 people into our house. No small feat considering the limitation of seating, and the fact that my mother insisted on putting the diningroom table right where it would be in everyone's way as they tried to get from kitchen to livingroom (all because she wanted people to sit behind it...).
But it was a lot of fun, and they all graciously managed to arrive almost in mass and then leave in mass after a few frenzied hours of family fun.
And once they were gone, there was the cleaning up to do...
The library where I work had to make a serious decision after the state let us know funding was being cut from "urban" libraries. We were faced with a staff shortage because of a hiring freeze (that has now been extended), and the only rational solution was to do a 20% across the board cut of hours of service. This allowed us to spread out the staff we did have a little more and prevented us from losing staff or locations of service.
So now my regular location is closed on Mondays, and I spend Mondays at another branch (and it is kinda fun too).
We're holding steady at 45 people willing to prepay to get my novel Wandering Lark into print. Patience is a virtue, but we really need 55 more names.
And I know times are hard. The publishing industry is being hit hard by this recession.
In the mean time, I have several irons in the fire, a novella being released here shortly, a short story coming out in a rather nice anthology, and invitation to write for another anthology, and a couple of projects in the works.
And if you visit DroolingWizards, you can read my story "Drooling Wizards." Helix: A Speculative Fiction Quarterly originally published the tale a year ago, and it has closed its doors (this was intended all along, as I understand, the magazine was an experiment) and the archives have been taken down, but they have a list of contributors and stories, and I was told that if I wanted to put my story online and give them a link, they would make sure it stayed there for as long as virtual space allowed
In the mean time, I am editing my Mageborn King series, editing the sequel to Ard Magister, editing a couple of novellas that I may toss out on Lulu.com in the hopes of making a little money.
Oh, and the Really Big News. As of the end of 2008, I paid off the last of my credit cards. Which means I should be officially Out Of Debt--a place I plan to stay.
Not a bad ending for an old year.
Laura J. Underwood
Mine has started out fairly well. This is the first Christmas in three years that I and my family have not been struck down with some illness.
The Christmas Day Gathering of the Clan was wild and crazy. With the nieces all growing up and getting hitched, and some of them now having children of their own, we crammed over 20 people into our house. No small feat considering the limitation of seating, and the fact that my mother insisted on putting the diningroom table right where it would be in everyone's way as they tried to get from kitchen to livingroom (all because she wanted people to sit behind it...).
But it was a lot of fun, and they all graciously managed to arrive almost in mass and then leave in mass after a few frenzied hours of family fun.
And once they were gone, there was the cleaning up to do...
The library where I work had to make a serious decision after the state let us know funding was being cut from "urban" libraries. We were faced with a staff shortage because of a hiring freeze (that has now been extended), and the only rational solution was to do a 20% across the board cut of hours of service. This allowed us to spread out the staff we did have a little more and prevented us from losing staff or locations of service.
So now my regular location is closed on Mondays, and I spend Mondays at another branch (and it is kinda fun too).
We're holding steady at 45 people willing to prepay to get my novel Wandering Lark into print. Patience is a virtue, but we really need 55 more names.
And I know times are hard. The publishing industry is being hit hard by this recession.
In the mean time, I have several irons in the fire, a novella being released here shortly, a short story coming out in a rather nice anthology, and invitation to write for another anthology, and a couple of projects in the works.
And if you visit DroolingWizards, you can read my story "Drooling Wizards." Helix: A Speculative Fiction Quarterly originally published the tale a year ago, and it has closed its doors (this was intended all along, as I understand, the magazine was an experiment) and the archives have been taken down, but they have a list of contributors and stories, and I was told that if I wanted to put my story online and give them a link, they would make sure it stayed there for as long as virtual space allowed
In the mean time, I am editing my Mageborn King series, editing the sequel to Ard Magister, editing a couple of novellas that I may toss out on Lulu.com in the hopes of making a little money.
Oh, and the Really Big News. As of the end of 2008, I paid off the last of my credit cards. Which means I should be officially Out Of Debt--a place I plan to stay.
Not a bad ending for an old year.
Laura J. Underwood
