Author: claudia

The surly chicken is outside my office again.

He is a man about my height wearing a chicken suit that has presumably seen better days, although it is hard to know in what days the chicken suit would have been considered “good.” For one, it is made of yellow fur, which is less “chicken” and more “psychedelic Yeti.” But the big rubber chicken head on top leaves no doubt that this costume is intended for the impersonation of poultry.

For the past month or two, he’s been hanging around my block. I think he is promoting some local business, although he is never waving or being cheerful in the manner of most such mascots. Instead he loiters, shoulders slumped, turning his head that way and this as if daring anyone to to mention the yellow fur. Every once in a while, he will yell something at the passers-by, which might be an advertising slogan but might as easily be angry obscenities. The rubber mask muffles all words and ensures that the surly chicken will never, ever be understood. All I know is that his tone is not encouraging.

I mean, I guess he’s promoting a business. He could just be a guy whose tether to sanity has snapped, rather spectacularly, and this is his chosen method of crazy. But sometimes he seems to be clutching fistfuls of coupons. I really would like to take one, if for no other reason to find out what business could possibly believe that this is the best way to get themselves out there. But I am somewhat afraid of the surly chicken.

Today I went out to grab lunch, and the surly chicken was yelling at the Daily News guy. At least, I think he was, and the newsguy seemed to think so too.

Will I eventually get to see the surly chicken take someone on? I will report.

Next week: big announcements coming!

I just got this in e-mail from a friend, and — unlike 99.99% of all mass internet forwards I have ever received — it made me smile.

“Once upon a time, a guy asked a girl ‘Will you marry me?’ The girl said:’No!’ And the girl lived happily ever-after and went shopping, dancing, shopping (again), drank red wine, never had to cook, did whatever the hell she wanted, never argued, didn’t let herself go, traveled more, had many lovers, and had all the hot water to herself. She went to the theater, had high self-esteem, never cried or yelled, felt and looked fabulous and was pleasant all the time.

*The End*

Here’s to living pleasantly.”

So, on my website, it says I like hiking. When I wrote that, it would probably have been more accurate to say that I like the idea of hiking. It just seems like a pleasant way to spend time. Beautiful scenery! Fresh air! Reveling in health and vitality! Wearing casual-yet-fetching clothes made of natural fibers! And then you get into an SUV conveniently parked in the most scenic vista of all and drive home. Obviously most of my knowledge of this is taken from commercials.

However, I am calling my own bluff and have joined a local hiking club. I won’t actually go on my first hike until next month, but that’s good — that gives me a few weekends to tromp around in the park and break in my boots. I have a feeling that March in upstate New York may somehow prove less warm/sunny/radiant than my mental image. On the other hand, if I make it through that, I should be fine when the weather actually gets nice, right?

I have another reason for starting this now: A good friend and I are planning a trip to South America this fall. (I am insanely excited about this, but will burble about it later, ad nauseum, so am refraining here.) When we do that, there will be some hiking involved, and I’d rather be really in-shape and ready for it.

(Though when I read the vacation brochures, they helpfully explain that among the wondrous wildlife I can expect to see is the puma. I really do not wish to encounter a puma in the wild. It would be highly ironic if, after a life spent indoors as much as possible, I finally became outdoorsy and were eaten by a puma for my pains. If that DOES happen, though, I want that on my tombstone. BORN 1970, DEVOURED BY PUMA 2008.) (ETA: In fact, I think I want that on my tombstone no matter what.)

No pumas in upstate New York, though. I think.

I’ll report on the hike in March!

In claudiagray.com news, my wonderfab designer and I finally figured out what to do for wallpapers and icons. (We’d hoped to use elements from the book jacket, but legal considerations cruelly interfered.) So we ought to have something ready within a couple of weeks —

Thanks to Tez (hi, Tez!), I now know that the second book in the Evernight series, Stargazer, is now available for pre-order.

(Of course, so is Evernight, though I guess that goes without saying.)

Apparently the on-sale date is Nov. 18, although I’m learning that can change. (For instance, Evernight was slated for a June release until only a couple of months ago.) At any rate, I’ll be adding the link to my site as soon as I have some cover art for Stargazer, which the good folks at HC tell me should be soon. I can’t believe it’s already up there!

Hmmm, I wonder when the cover art will appear on Amazon?

I’m excited to announce that my official website is up and running! (And none too soon, either — the ARCs have just gone out, so I went right up to the wire on this one.) Please take a look and let me know what you think. We’ll be adding wallpapers, banners and icons for people to grab in the next few weeks, and I hope to have some fun polls up even sooner than that.

This weekend was just fabulous. Not only did I get to finalize so much of the website, but I also got to meet the delightful rj_anderson, whose first novel, Knife, is coming out from HarperCollins in 2009. Then, Saturday and Sunday, I spent working on Hourglass, the third novel in the Evernight series. I’m in the middle of a very enjoyable section, where the writing feels much more like play than work — which is a good thing, given that I did more than 8 hours a day both Saturday and Sunday. And the next few chapters promise to be even more fun. Darned day job — I wish I could stay with my manuscript right now. Alas, the bills must be paid.

A few of you have asked for review copies, but I haven’t been able to give any answers yet. I’m still waiting for final word on how many ARCs will be available. HarperCollins should let me know sometime this week, so I hope to be able to distribute to all of you then — and, hopefully, we can have a contest for an ARC here. So stay tuned!

The Evernight launch is getting closer — seriously, it seems like, overnight, the situation changed from “someday, eventually, the book comes out” to “OMG TOMORROW TOMORROW TOMORROW.” May 27 is not tomorrow, but it feels like it, particularly when I have so much left to do. At least I’ve finalized my web copy, and with my talented designer’s help, I think we’ll be able to go live shortly.

(Of course, web copy work kept me from doing more than one chapter of Hourglass this week, but I’ll just have to go double-time next week –)

And we got REALLY great news from Barnes & Noble, which has decided to give Evernight a display in bookstores. I am strongly tempted to claim one of them for myself and keep it around the house. To store knick-knacks or something. I’m definitely going to take lots of camera-phone photos of them.

Top all that off with last night’s win for the Giants, and I’m in a fabulous mood. (What can I say? Born in Mississippi, living in New York, I’ve got twice the reasons to root for Eli Manning.)

This is not for the Evernight series — it’s just an idea I have, right now, but I’m interested to see what you guys think!

She is 17 years old, a witch by birth and by training, very spirited and funny. She goes after what she wants and can be fierce about it (if bordering on unfair, at times). Her hair and eyes are both dark brown, and she’s so short that she’s often taken for being younger than she is, to her displeasure.

I can’t do polls unless I pay for this LJ (not there yet), but in comments, let me know if you prefer:

* Cecily
* Genevieve
* Gwen
* May
* Roxie
* Ruby

Got other ideas? Let me know?

UP: Lots of snow predicted!

DOWN: Predicted for yesterday, which was bone-dry. It’s finally started snowing a teeny bit here in Manhattan, but it is not the fluffy winter wonderland we were promised.

UP: FedEx is sending my very, very final edits to Evernight back to HarperCollins!

DOWN: But first, they mistakenly sent them to Utah. UTAH.

(Note: I live in New York. I mailed the edits from a location approximately 20 blocks from HarperCollins. And they sent them to UTAH.)

UP: FedEx finally found the package in Utah and got it back where it needed to go.

DOWN: I had to rename the male lead of the entire Evernight series, and on such short notice that I only had two days to choose!

UP: His new name is Lucas, which already I like so much better than the name that came before.

ALSO UP: My new sofa arrives Saturday, which means my apartment will actually be completely finished by Feb. 1.

With more ups than downs, I think this week’s roller-coaster ride gets a Wheee! instead of an Aaaaaaghh! Although I was thinking a lot of variations on Aaaaaagh! when my edits were lost in Utah.

Because the main character in Evernight loves classic black-and-white movies, I thought I’d like to this great article about Cary Grant.

Grant was, of course, a beautiful, beautiful man. He was also a fantastic actor. But there’s another reason why Bianca idealizes him in Evernight, though she isn’t entirely conscious of it —

It’s been far too long since I posted, but it’s been a tough few months. My gallbladder decided to stop functioning — so there was surgery — and I had to move — so there was packing, and moving, and unpacking — and then there was a sidewalk slip that left my right arm a sling for a while. Yeesh. My main new year’s resolution is to have a less eventful (and more fun!) 2008.

Certainly, on the book front, things are very exciting. I just got the ARCS of Evernight, and that surreal moment is finally here: It’s a book. It didn’t seem real to me at first, to be honest; when it finally hit me was when I took one ARC home and shelved it on my own bookshelf. A small moment — but that was the single second, aside from the actual news that we’d sold the books, that felt like a turning point to me.

Evernight‘s release date has been moved up, too — to May 27. It will be here before I know it!

Next up for me — getting final revisions done on Stargazer, the sequel to Evernight, and completing my Website copy, so the designer and I can meet our goal of getting the site online in February. After that, it’s time to jump into Hourglass, the third book in the series.

Yeah, I’d better hope 2008 is a little less adventurous than 2007! I’ve got a lot to do.

Including catching up with fangs_fur_fey, and all of you —