Lost in Faerie... I'll Get Back To You...

Okay, I'm not really lost... not really... But I'm EVER SO SLOWLY working my way through a much cherished ARC of Faerie Winter by Janni Lee Simner and freaking ferrets riding calliopes I'm in love with it. Utterly. Irrevocably. *sighs and resists the urge to pick up aforementioned awesomeness*

I've also been totally lost in my own dystopian world, working on a companion novel to Evernow. I am so into this can of worms that there's no getting me out without a fish hook... This kind of writing is like a drug for me, which is a little disturbing, but since it costs me nothing, and might pay my bills one day I guess it's a good kind of disturbing. Whatever, I'll got with it :)

Oh, and while I'm on the subject does anyone who might read this have an opinion/experience with querying a companion book? I mean, this is a just companion book, and unless something changes, it'll be able to stand alone. It takes place many years after Evernow, and thusly references to the Endings and the time before them are much more vague. Is it okay to query this book (tentatively titled Anima Rising, AR for short, you may now begin with the pirate jokes :) assuming that I don't have an agent by the time it's ready to query? Should I just reorganize my brain to see the two books as having no actual 'order' between them, and just see them as two books taking place in the same world? Or should I still view Evernow as the 'anchor' book to the set? There's probably a third book floating in my head, another companion/stand alone. Any impute will be appreciated.

In other news, Christmas is in full swing in our neck of the woods, so we've been doing stuff like getting a Christmas tree, and decorating and helping my grandmother (code name Gang) put up her tree. Dinner is calling... but here are a couple of pictures of Gang's tree...

It's nine feet tall and absolutely inundated with ornaments, many of which are older than me. The glass beads and tinsel are also ancient by decorations standards.

This is an ornament that Gang made back in 1972 in a craft class she was taking. Yes, only in my family can you have May West rendered as a claymation mermaid... It's been a cherished game, though, for all of us kids to rush to the tree every year on Christmas and be the first to find her...