Five Things on a Friday, the Middle School & Satanist edition

1. Hi to the Battlefield Middle School kids, if you're reading this. You all did a great job of looking like I was being interesting and laughing at the appropriate laughing parts. Also, to the kids who came up afterward to talk to me, thanks for being so awesome! Please be aware that I'm in love with your school library, however. It made me want to curl up in a fetal position and fondly remember my middle school days.

2. I found out this week that two thirds of the band Alkaline Trio are Satanists, which I found disturbing enough to look up what Satanism really entails. I discovered that it means you 1) party all the time, 2) don't count calories, and 3) go raaaaaaaah and smack people who get in your way. I'm paraphrasing, but those are the high points. I couldn't actually find out anything that had to do with Satan on the wikipedia page. In general, however, it's making me look at their song "Burn" in a whole new light.

3. I met my incredible agent, Laura Rennert, in person on Tuesday, and she was just like I'd imagined her. We talked for three hours over vaguely Italian food, and it went by in the blink of an eye. Of course, that might have been the 17 sugar packets I used in my tea talking. In general, though, I was left with that really satisfied feeling of having paired up with exactly the right agent. Plus, she gave me insanely good news which is, in the way of all my insanely good news, not allowed to be shared publicly yet. But let's just say it involved more staring at the wall and blinking rapidly in disbelief.

4. Today I'm cooking Thanksgiving dinner for my extended family and I'm drooling over the idea of turkeys deep sea diving in gravy. Of course, I'd be a lot more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed today if I hadn't been up until 2 reading one of my crit partner Tessa Gratton's WIP, which is amazing and fills me with vicarious glee.

5. It's Black Friday, so this is your one and only gentle reminder to buy fiction for your loved ones for Christmas and make the book biz happy in this Crappyconomy. You can buy LAMENT at Amazon or Indiebound or you can buy the Merry Sisters of Fate anthology in hardcover or softcover or you can buy someone else's stuff. Just buy a book. Save the world.