Candy Land, Curse Workers, and Other Happy Things

Hello, Faithful Reader! I must apologize for neglecting you in the past week. If life was a Candy Land board (as I often wish it was), then last week I was stuck with stumpy Plumpy and his totally lame Plum Tree.Nice try, Plumpy, but PLUMS do not candy make. Sugar plums, maybe, but those do not grow on trees. And as we all know, getting stuck with Plumpy is about the most depressing thing that can happen to you in Candy Land aside from missing the Rainbow Bridge by one stupid square.

Side note: a quick wikipedia entry informs me that there have been some Very Upsetting Developments in Candy Land since I last visited. WTF do you mean Princess Lolly is no longer a princess and Queen Frostine has downgraded her crown for a princess tiara!? Methinks not, my friends. METHINKS NOT.

Anyway, getting somewhat back on track, when I'm feeling glum I tend not to blog because I don't want to drag you down with me. But! It's a new week and I'm determined to make it a good one. To make it up so you, here are some good things that filled me with happy today.

1. Cindy Pon--awesome person and talented writer of SILVER PHOENIX

and the forthcoming sequel FURY OF THE PHOENIX is doing a giveaway for the two books in Holly Black's ongoing Curse Workers series: White Cat and Red Glove. I've been wanting to read these since I met Holly at Sirens and she read an excerpt from Red Glove. So please don't enter this contest because I want to win!! Just kidding...send Cindy and Holly some love and enter right now. Right this instant!

2. I've been struggling with my voice as a writer, lately (another reason to be a bit glum) so Terri Windling's most recent posts have seemed as if they were written for me. Not so, of course, and I recommend any writers and artists go read what she has to say on the creative process. I know I know, I'm totally obsessed with her but she's so grounded and yet so magical.

3. Neil Gaiman's blog has been a bit sparse lately, but he recently blogged about walking in Australia and seeing a woman with a tattoo of his own words on her body. His reaction was complex and, I think, similar to how I would feel in that situation. I have my ghost days--not because I've seen someone tattooed with my own words, of course. But we all have our ghost days when the world doesn't seem real or, more troubling, WE don't seem real.

And once again it is snowing and very soon I'll go walk through the snow to read with my fifth grader, Ryan. Today we are going to begin The Hobbit. Let's hope he likes it as much as he likes The Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. I'll let you know.