This Past Weekend, I Stole From A Church

This is going to be a completely random post with little tidbits of stuff that's gone on recently, including the explanation for the title of the post. Why haven't I been posting lately? Well, I've been working almost non-stop on the book proposal/plot synopses of the sequels to Well of Sorrows. I'd like to sell them, you see, so that Colin's story can be finished. You've seen me obsessing about the titles of the two books, so here's the final decision:

The Immortality of Colin Harten (tentative series title; does it suck?)
Book 1: Well of Sorrows
Book 2: Leaves of Anguish
Book 3: Flames of Sacrifice

Thanks to everyone who weighed in on this. Keep in mind that this was just for the proposal. If an editor is interested and buys the last two, then the titles may change. Even Well of Sorrows might change in the end, depending on what my editor thinks of the manuscript.

Also, thanks to pbray and jennifer_dunne for looking over the plot synopses on such short notice. I have the package printing at the moment and will be sending it out tomorrow. If I don't run out of ink. (Already ran out of paper and made a quick run down to Kmart to buy some.) I'm expecting to run out of ink in about 20 pages, with only 20 pages left to print. This is my life.

Let's see, what else has been going on? Oh, yeah, stealing from the church. I've already told you all about my obsession with crackle glass (see previous post with pictures). Well, this past weekend we hit the flea market and there wasn't a single piece of crackle to be found. *fail* So on the way back we hit one of the local food bazaars that the churches seem to run here on a weekly basis on the weekends. Each weekend it's a different church selling different types of ethnic foods. We usually stop by and spend $20 at each church event. Well, this particular church was also having a yard sale, sort of. The minute we walked in I saw this great piece of crackle. A vase, brown, and large. I homed in on it, thinking that it's probably worth $50 and I'd definitely take it is it was $20, perhaps if it was $30, since most people don't realize how much crackle is worth. Some even think the glass is broken and worthless. In any case, guess how much they wanted?

$5

I almost squeed. It was a near thing. But I locked in my sober face and tried not to drop the crackle piece since inside I was trembling and weak with my find. I very calmly told the young person behind the table that I'd take it and handed it over to be wrapped.

As I walked away, my partner told me I'd stolen it. I admit there was a small amount of guilt as I unwrapped it at home and set it on the table in the sunlight. But it's not like I'm a dealer and I intend to sell it to someone for 10 times its cost. I intend to keep it! It's found a good home! I swear!

I'm going to hell.

In other news, we've started getting tomatoes and cucumbers from our roof garden. Pictures will likely be forthcoming. The corn is almost ready to pick as well, and the eggplant is looking great! A few squash coming (spagetti and yellow straightneck) as well. Nothing but flowers so far on the acorn squash, but we've got TONS of little watermelons started. Most are getting to be a decent size and make me think they'll actually produce something.

Oh, and while writing the synopsis for the new books, I realized that I'd written out a history of this world and how everything connected at some point. But where was it? I started digging (I seriously believe this was procrastination efforts on my part, because I didn't NEED the history). I ran across the history . . . along with some old emails I'd sent to agents during my agent hunt before getting published. One of them included ALL of the projects I intended to write at that point. The Skewed Throne was among them (as a single stand-alone novel of course), plus Well of Sorrows and the current series, along with two other books I'd totally forgotten about. As soon as I read the little plot synopses, all of the details of those books came back, characters, setting, etc. One is a contemporary fantasy (not an urban fantasy) and the other is science fiction. I may post those paragraphs in the next LJ post. But in any case, it made me realize I've got . . . 15 other novels either written (like Fever) or planned, plus at least 3 others that are slightly vague but forming. Four of these are SF, and three are contemporary fantasy/suspense novels, like Stephen King.

I guess I'd better get writing.

Oh, and that reminds me: don't name one of the kings in your land Stephan. I did. I kept writing and writing and writing and every time I typed King Stephan it bothered me. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why, until about a week ago.

Stephen King . . . King Stephan . . . just a little too weird.

ETA: Printing done without a need to run for ink! Yay!