northern California coast

Hello dear readers!

I thought I'd spice up this new year's post with some monsterful words from The Word Museum: the Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten. (See the glossary at the end of this post if you're feeling cabobbled or blutterbunged.)

After a bit of deepmusing on this past year, I made a list of things I'm grateful for (the list ended up way to long to list here...) Here are some highlights:

I'm grateful to my friends, family, and readers... and honored that even antipodes are reading my novels.

I'm grateful for my husband and son, who provide me with babies-in-the-eyes every day and night... not to mention plently of croodling.

I'm grateful for finishing The Ruby Notebook (released next fall), which was not easy for me-- it involved many hours in my trailer with clumpst hands on my keyboard, while out the window was a great deal of falling-weather and snow-blossoms. Sometimes I felt utterly ramfeezled, like a total maulifuff, all mawmsey, and by planets in a twee-- those were the tough days. But there were lots of good, fruitful days, where I was frooncing and delighting in the story prorumping from my fingertips.

I'm grateful for the many book events and conferences and school visits and blog interviews I got to do this year, and the librarians, teachers, students, bloggers, writers, and book sellers I met.

I'm grateful for my first trip to Random House-- it was absolutely monsterful meeting everyone at Delacorte. Then, I had a retreat full of gramarye in Portland with my abracadabrant agent and the authors she works with.

The Indigo Notebook was released, and in celebration, we had a party that was a complete glee-dream for me... my friend and co-author of The Queen of Water, Maria Virginia, was in town to dance and partake in the merriment. (And I"m grateful that this year we signed a contract for our book, which will come out in Spring 2011)!

I'm grateful for the trips I took-- some writing-related, and some just for fun and gratulating and weather-spying-- Mazunte (beach town in Oaxaca), Tulum, Steamboat Springs (CO), nothern California, Portland, southern Maryland, suburban Maryland, Michigan, NYC...

Ratherist, I'm grateful for simple joys, like watching dust motes and insect wings in sunlight, moon-gazing with Toddler, star-gazing with Ian, walking along the river near my house, gazing at light on snow and water and petals and all the other pleasures of the soul and soul-case.

Here's my resolution for this year, which is already off to a monsterful start: Have a playful, joyful, frooncing attitude toward writing. Fill my head with happy love-teeth and bellitude.

Have you done some deepmusing yourself? What are you grateful for? What's your resolution for this year? I offer you welwilly wishes for a sloven's year in 2010!!!

GLOSSARY (These are all *real words* that used to be in the English language! Let's put them back in use again...)

abracadabrant -- marvelous
monsterful -- wonderful
blutterbunged -- confounded
cabobbled-- mystified
deepmusing-- contemplative (and comtemplating?)
antipodes-- people who live on the other side of the earth
babies-in-the-eyes-- the miniature reflection of himself which a person sees in the pupil of another's eye on looking closely into it. (Absolutely adorable, no?)
croodling-- snuggling
clumpst-- hands stiff with cold
falling-weather-- rain or snow
snow-blossoms-- snowflakes
ramfeezled--exhausted from work
maulifuff-- a woman without energy; one who makes much fuss and does little or nothing.
mawmsey-- sleepy, stupid, as from want of rest
by planets-- irregularly, capriciously
in a twee-- overcome with fear or vexation
frooncing-- to go about in an active or bustling manner
prorumping-- bursting forth
gramarye -- magic
glee-dream-- merriment caused by music
gratulating-- rejoicing
weather-spying -- stargazing
ratherest-- most of all
soul-case-- the body
love-teeth in the head-- inclinations to love
bellitude-- beauty, elegance, loveliness
wel-willy-- benevolent
sloven's year-- a wonderfully prosperous season

Thanks for indulging me!

xoxo,
Laura