Jennifer Brozek | All posts tagged 'kitties'

Life Update

Life has been busy, busy, busy, but good.

Writing
I've finished Rogue Academy: Iron Dawn, polish-edited it, and turned it in. I feel accomplished and actually pretty good about the manuscript. Of course, now I’m in that “I finished a novel, now what?” flail. It’s not that I don’t have stuff to work on. I do. It’s the fact that it feels like I’m doing “procrastination work” – which is what writing flash fiction, editing, and outlining is while I’m novel drafting. I’ll shake my brain out soon enough.

What am I working on now?

  • Shadow Bytes – five pieces of Shadowrun flash fiction for a podcast.
  • Editing the stories for A Secret Guide to Fighting Elder Gods Lovecraft anthology.
  • Prepping to write a Shadowrun novella, A Kiss to Die For.


What does my brain want to work on? After a call with my agent, a far future oceanic novella that I've been noodling over for about a year now. It might become a good Wit'n'Word writing group project.

Conventions
August – I have two major conventions coming up in August: Gen Con and WorldCon. I am a dealer at both and a panelist at WorldCon. I’ll find out this week if I have any panel things to do for Cat Labs at Gen Con. I’ve got my house/cat sitters in place. I’ve started my plans for packing. Gen Con will be more complex than WorldCon, but all of it is doable.

September – I’m participating in the North Coast Redwoods Writers’ Conference. I’ll be reading Friday night, 21 Sep, and teaching two workshops on Saturday, 22 Sep.

Household Stuff
Back patio – Our house is 30+ years old. We’re the second owners. We’re slowly making it look less like a 30+ year old house. The latest project is replacing the back red-brick patio with pretty grey paver stones. The Husband did most of the work. It’s involved and still ongoing. There’ll be a blog post about it soon. It’s not done because it includes replacing the deck stairs on the patio side of things.

Eating from the pantry – Twice a year, the Husband and I do what we call “eating from the pantry.” We don’t eat out. We don’t grocery shop except for fresh veggies and milk. We eat from what we have in the pantry and the deep freeze for the full month as a way of cleaning out the older / soon-to-expire dry goods. It’s also a way to save money. Of course, this means we end up with some strange meals by the end of the month. Bubble-and-Squeak for the win!

Kitties
All four of them are fat and happy. I’m sure you can see that from my Twitter and Instagram. Feel free to join us there.

Bubble & Squeek for 14 Dec 2016

I'm working on revisions for the Sekrit Project Alex extras and the final tie-in story for 2016. They both have fiddly bits to get correct. So, here's a Bubble & Squeek for you.

All I want for my Birthday (and Christmas for that matter). Please consider buying one of my books for yourself or as a gift for someone else. It helps keep my cats in kibble and me working on the fiction you know and love.

Article: On the Qwillery – The Perfect Line in the Sand on why zombies are the perfect kind of monster and why we used them so much.

ebook Release: The kindle version of THE LAST DAYS OF SALTON ACADEMY is live! Here is the Barnes and Noble link.

Interview: On Wag the Fox focused around THE LAST DAYS OF SALTON ACADEMY and YA fiction.

Interview: On Ginger Nuts of Horror. This was one long, meaty interview filled with intriguing questions I’ve never had to answer before.

Release: TEMPEST, All-New Tales of Valdemar. I've got my second story of Hadara and Kitha in here. This is the fourth Valdemar anthology I've written for. I'm still pinching myself at how lucky I am I get to play in Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar world.

Review: Ginger Nuts of Horror reviewed
THE LAST DAYS OF SALTON ACADEMYIt doesn’t look like the reviewer liked it very much. But they are correct in saying the book was written for a different age group. (I much prefer these kinds of reviews. :) )

And a picture of Mena being oh-so-dignified. I love this picture of her.

Blogging While Noveling

Blogging while writing a novel is boring from the outside. My head is filled with the wonderful and horrible things I’ve done, am doing, plan to do to my character. It’s also filled with the myriad of things I need to figure out or research to get the novel done. All I can show for it is “Wrote 1400 words today. Feel good about them.” Or “Got 600 words in today. It was like pulling teeth.”

No matter what I’m doing, half my mind is with my novel. My husband and close friends are used to me tangenting in a question that is related to my novel or breaking off to talk about something that’s just happened in the novel or talking about some research I just did and discovered something new that affects the novel.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, I don’t have anything to talk about except… I’m writing NEVER LET ME DIE and I’m feeling pretty good about it now. I guess my advice is to not even try to be interesting.

Here. Have some kitty pictures.

Operation Rescue Singas

Or how I became a six cat household on Christmas Eve.

For the last seven weeks, I’ve been keeping an eye on a pair of singapuras put up on RescueMe.org. A pair of girls had been willed to a doctor who already had pets. They tried for seven weeks to integrate the kitties and it didn’t work. All the back and forth ended up with an email yesterday that came down to, “it’s not working, will you come get them tonight?”

I emailed Jeff and asked if he was willing. He was. (My hero!) And suddenly, we had Operation Rescue Singas, the cutest escort mission ever. We drove 540 miles roundtrip in about 11.5 hours (holiday traffic) to pick these little loves up. The story got a little weirder. (IE: The deceased woman’s husband is still alive. He didn’t even know the kitties names. I need to contact him for any information on the breeder, shots, paperwork, etc… HIS contact info is forthcoming.)

So, currently, Talia and Lyta are temporarily housed in the cat room in full airlock mode—much to the disgruntlement of the current four living here. And they such little lovebugs. Talia is super friendly and loving and outgoing. Lyta is very shy but does cuddle and purr.

Now, this six cat household is not a permanent thing…unless it is. There is a couple in Korea from the Singapura list that will be adopting them. We are in contact and they are working out a courier arrangement to get them to Korea. I hope it works out. If it doesn’t, Plan B—you know me, I’m a planner—involves a couple of other people on the Singapura FB list. Plan C is that Jeff and I keep them. We both know that’s a possibility and are prepared for it.

Today they went to the vet. No feline leukemia or feline aids. Yay! No fleas. Yay! No microchips. Boo! Talia has a watery eye but it’s healthy. Yay! Vet bill we didn’t expect. Boo! Generous donations from the Singapura FB list covers a lot of it. Yay!

So, the kitties are happily ensconced in the cat room. My cats are pissed. But all is well in the world. Merry Cat Christmas to one and all.

This is what the singas traveled in. Plus a furry bed. No tight carriers for this escort mission.

Lyta on the left. Talia on the right.

Even shy Lyta can't resist the cuddles of the Husband.

Talia refuses to stay still except for cuddles...briefly.

The Cat Airlock and only one of the four cats eyeing it. Yes. Pharaoh is in a cone. He keeps scratching at his eye.

A Writer's Life on Deadline

"Okay. That was fun. You guys enjoy game night. I need to get back to work if I want to play Pathfinder on Sunday." -Me, 8:30pm on a Friday night

Have some kitties.

Bubble and Squeek for 20 May 2013

Here's the back cover copy for CHILDREN OF ANU. This book will be released on 1 June 2013.

I will be reading at the University Bookstore on 27 June with Kat Richardson and Lily Cohen-Moore. I know the post says it will be at the temple. That's wrong. It will be in the Bookstore.

I have now officially signed a contract to write a Shadowrun novella! Tentatively called "A Day in the Life of a Lifesaver." It will be about Doc Wagon 19.

That unexpected job interview from last week? I got the contract. I'll be onsite doing a short term contract writing / editing for an awesome RPG company. More details when (if) I'm allowed.

Mena is fine and frisky. She's on meds to help her ear. Her one month check up is on Friday.

A Much Better Day

Mena is home! She's eating, got a cream for her ear, and antibiotics. I'm really happy.

Also... 5 years ago, Jeff and I wed in front of family and friends. It's been fabulous and I am so happy. I'm looking forward to many more years to come.

 

Mena Update

I really wanted this update to be all about how good Mena’s doing but, while her stitches seem to be healing well (she was supposed to get them out tomorrow), she’s started vomiting in the last couple of days and wouldn’t accept treats today. Yesterday and today it looked like she tried to eat her kibble but couldn’t keep it down. Thus, a call to the vet. Thus, a request to bring her in immediately. *sigh*

Doc quizzed me on medicine and such. It could be anything: she needs more antibiotics or she ate something bad or something’s going on with her ear that’s making her nauseated. No one knows right now. I’m going to call later in the day. I know she’s going to be kept overnight and probably x-rayed. 

My poor fur baby. She just can’t catch a break.

 

The full story of Mena is here.

Mena is Home

Mena is home now, in her blue cape. She keeps trying to groom but fails. This is good and bad. Right now, all of the cats are randomly hissy at each other. First it was Mena. It’s the drugs. Now, it’s mostly Isis and she’s hissing at everyone. I’m pretty sure it is a dominance thing. Plus, Mena’s cape makes her look bigger than she is.


Thank you everyone who helped raise money for Mena’s surgery. You all helped raise about $400. Between that, my extra hours, and my patron, we’re squeaking through. We’re still hoping to sell the bar to cover the rest and the follow up visit.

We’ve decided to keep the Apocalypse Ink Productions book sale going through the middle of May. Partly as a “thank you!” and partly in prep of the release of CHILDREN OF ANU. I’m really-really glad she’s home.

 

Mena After Surgery

Just got back from visiting Mena at the vet. They need to keep her another night to make sure her pain is managed and to make sure the surgery wound is healing as expected. Mena is on serious drugs and is feeling no pain. At the same time, she really, really wanted to be with me but also wanted her box (aka the litter box—I can see why they leave so little litter in there and clean it immediately).

She knew me as soon as I came in and was both very meowy and purring. She couldn’t get comfortable but was happy to see me. She insisted on having me hold her from time to time and kept trying to rub her wound on me. This freaked me out. I mean, I’ve been dealing with an open leg wound since February and the idea of rubbing is just… not gonna think about it.

Mena will be on a pain patch for two weeks. I’m glad. That surgery wound looks awful to me. It’s open down the side of her face. The skin is suppose to close and the hair is suppose to camouflage the surgical scar. But, everything is reacting as expected.

How you can help.