The revision cave is a nice place to live. It’s quiet and dark. There are no bright lights and no loud noises. Or maybe there are, but you certainly can’t be counted on to notice them.

There is no such thing as laundry in the revision cave. There are no dishes to wash, no plans. The gym is a thing of the past, and so is vacuuming. News, politics, and series television grind to a halt. The world stalls.

Occasionally, there are anxiety dreams involving carnivorous rabbits that dig all the way down to the water main and flood your basement. You try to shoo them away, but they are, unfortunately, carnivorous. So you get a stick and poke at them half-heartedly. This is a metaphor for revision, even if you have no idea what it means.

In the cave, in the dark, everything is a metaphor for everything else. Sometimes, not a very good one. You consider all the ways that language feels inadequate, and then use it anyway.

Sometimes, you look around and discover with delight that there is coffee.

I’m writing a funeral . . .

However, due to certain biological constraints that prevent him from actually setting foot on hallowed ground, my main character/first-person narrator is unable to attend.

I’m writing an implied funeral . . .

Revision is awesome.

. . . is so much fun. So much fun! There will be a more cohesive account later, for sure. But right now, just so much fun.

And thank you *everyone* for all the responses to my big news! I’ve been running around like crazy the last couple days, and when I finally got a chance to get some internet and log on, it made me appallingly maudlin and sappy when I saw all the comments!

Two things, actually. Two.

The first thing is that by this time tomorrow, I’ll be in Savannah and it will be awesome. Not only will I have the pleasure of meeting fellow authors , , , , , , , and , but I hear there will be food there. And Spanish moss, and possibly ghosts. Also, I understand there’s a beach. (For those who may not be truly familiar with the great paradox that is me, I hate water, but I love the ocean.)

The second thing is . . . I have a book deal!!!!!!

(!!!!!!!!!!!)

It’s with Razorbill, an imprint I have coveted for a long time to an obscenely covetous degree, and while I’m completely unable to express myself clearly, I can still communicate by pasting the PW announcement here:

Lexa Hillyer at Razorbill acquired the debut novel FE by Brenna Yovanoff at auction during BEA. The book tells the story of Malcolm Doyle, who seems like everyone else in his perfect little town, but he has a secret: he is a Replacement, left in the crib of a human baby 16 years ago. Now the dark side wants him back and he must decide where he really belongs. Pub date is fall 2010. Sarah Davies of the Greenhouse Literary Agency was the agent.

That’s about me!

Also, my fabulous and . . . what’s another word for fabulous? My super-fabulous agent, Sarah Davies, gives an account on her blog.

So, uh. You should check it out. Yeah.

Yeah.

Let me explain. No, it’s too complicated. Let me sum up.

There’s a contest regarding this beautiful, soulful, and as-yet unreleased book by Maggie Stiefvater, which is currently available for pre-order .

I am not actually an entrant in the contest, so don’t think you have to show up and say my name—you just have to get your friends to show up and say yours.

Go here and let Maggie explain.

Feel free to disregard—I’m on a sleep-dep-fueled ramble of epic proportions* and I can’t promise entertainment value or even marginal coherency.

Okay, so I’ve always been a slash-and-burn reviser, but since December, when this particular rewrite commenced in earnest . . . well, let me just say that in the past three months, I’ve axed like I’ve never axed before.

At this point, I estimate that there are fewer than fifteen thousand original words remaining from what was once a 70k manuscript and is now a different 70k manuscript. I have pulled my hair, and stopped brushing my hair, and gone running a lot, and once I cried when I heard a Jimmy Eat World song on the radio. On these grounds, I could probably be institutionalized.

I have deleted scenes I hated, and scenes that I liked, and even one that I loved, but this is okay, because the book that existed before was sloppy and pedestrian. This new book will be much better. It has to be. It owes me.

Number One Triumph: Since Valentine’s Day, I have written twenty (say it with me, people) TWENTY THOUSAND new words. Not first-draft words, but the RIGHT words. Or at least, okay ones. This is not counting the words that I’ve written and subsequently deleted. There were many. This rewrite is going down. I am killing it like an expletive modified by some other expletive.

More evidence that D is awesome: I waylay him in the kitchen in order to apologize for behaving like an extraterrestrial for the past week, and then go one further, apologizing preemptively for any increasing irrationality, irritability or other weirdness that may yet occur as a result of foregoing sleep and basically all forms of real-life contact.

He says, and I quote, “So, you’re saying there’s going to be pie.”

Me: “Were you listening to me?”

Him: “Yeah, I heard you say that I’d be getting pie. When you stop sleeping, you bake a lot.”

I am tragically predictable. I am married to someone who totally gets me.

Lesson for life (self,write this down): Rewriting a book that you’ve already written is sometimes way, way harder than writing a book that is different.

*ETA: less than epic ramble. But totally ramble-y nonetheless. I do not disappoint.

Wait—that’s not right . . .

What I meant to say is, my near-future apocalyptic zombie short story is up at Strange Horizons right now, this very minute.

So, if you’re partial to militias, marines, or pus (preferably all three?): click away!

Today, I made a pro-rate sale to one of the much-coveted ezines on my January goals list!

(Paperwork pending, details to follow.)

Today, I accepted representation from a literary agent of the jaw-dropping stellar variety!

(Edits pending, backbreaking revisions to follow.)

But let’s back up—agent! Representation! Sitting around on the couch, looking totally dumbfounded!

Tonight D said, very solemnly, “You’re in the process of arriving.”

This is the far more disorganized and fan-girly addendum to my post, in which I like to think I maintained some air of professionalism or at least dignity.

For those of you who don’t know, I attended the Conestoga convention in Tulsa this weekend.

Be forewarned, my opinion of the convention is highly colored by the glee of getting to meet Tessa () in person and finding that she is just as entertaining and articulate face-to-face as she is in print, as well as by the fact that she put up with me talking incessantly (seriously, I could not shut up). And I had the added bonus of meeting , who accompanied Tessa to Oklahoma and is a whole lot of fun in her own right.

Highlights:

The author community hosted their own con-within-a-con and had their own dedicated programming track. As the community has grown rapidly (108 members!), it’s become my go-to site when it comes to finding speculative fiction written by highly talented authors.

mdhenry read from his upcoming sequel to Happy Hour of the Damned, which, if you like social savagery and the undead (as I do), is a must-have for all zombie aficionados. Or really just anyone who has a sick, snarky sense of humor and doesn’t mind a little (a lot) of gore and bodily fluids. Mark Henry’s next book Road Trip of the Living Dead is due out in March, and based on the fact that during his reading, I was laughing so hard I was almost crying, it’s going to be dynamite.

I also got to hear children’s author Dean Lorey read from the first book in his Nightmare Academy series. With voices! It reminded me of how much fun it is to be read to as a kid, and this series is a great one for reading aloud, not only because the characters are vivid and voice-y, but because adults will enjoy these books too, which seems like an important consideration.

I had the opportunity to talk with the lovely Jeri Smith-Ready () about all kinds of things, not least of which is her vampire-DJ series from Pocket. The first book, Wicked Game was released a couple months ago and it’s fun and sexy and smart. Plus, it comes with a playlist at the front—how cool is that?

To recap, it was a great experience, I got to meet a lot of interesting, friendly, funny people who had previously only existed to me online, anyone looking to build their spec/fic reading list should definitely check out , and I can’t wait to do this all again.