Still Looming Threateningly Over Libraries

The good people running "Winter Jackets, Winter Reading for Adults" have not yet come to their senses, which means I'm still planning to show up. I'll be talking about upcoming books and donating more of my deathless prose to the local library. It'll be swell!

So, I'll be lurking in Blaine, MN, this Saturday (Feb. 27), at 2:00 p.m. for an hour or so. The library can be found on 711 County Road 10 NE (sorry about the weird type-o last week, no clue where J came from). For more info (or to lodge your complaint), it's 763-717-3267. Otherwise, keep your complaints to yourself, then! :-)

I Invade Anoka, MN

As part of my parole agreement, I'll be speaking next Saturday, Feb. 27, at the Northtown Library at their winter reading program for adults. It'll be at 711 County Road J NE, Blaine, MN. For more info, call 763-717-3267, or visit the libe website at www.anoka.lib.mn.us.

It's free (it would seem insult to injury to have to listen to me, *and* pay for the privelege...just ask the gang in Stillwater!), and I'll be donating several books to the library (I'm always happy to decrease the fire hazard in my home office...you know how Emperor Joseph II says "Too many notes" in Amadeus? Yeah. In my office? Too many books.

Anyhoo, hope to see some of you there...a library, a writer, free books, and spring just around the corner...what could go wrong? (That is not a dare, by the way.)

The Dog Groomer Outs Me

Now that UNDEAD AND UNFINISHED is put to bed, I can once again focus on day-to-day matters I've spent the last six months ignoring. Things like grocery shopping, school activities, paying bills, sleeping, feigning love for my husband and children, driving kids places I have no interest in going, oil changes (it's cool how that red light goes on, it's how I know I should probably do something within the next eight weeks), and taking care of the dogs.

We have two, and we love them, but when they go months without being washed or brushed or flossed or whatever other things responsible pet owners take care of...let's just say that if you gathered all their sheddings, you could make six more dogs.

So off to the dog groomer we went. And, as is my custom, I gave the groomer my married name (Davidson is my maiden name and the name on all my books, so all those bitchy cheerleaders who were mean to me will see my name in lights and vomit with envy, even if they're only doing so in my imagination). I said I'd be back in two hours, and off I went to see how quickly the Oil light would go on once I'd started the car (two seconds, a new record! I wonder what all this means...?).

See, in our home town, my husband is the celeb, not me; he's on the City Council. Which suits me fine; I enjoy being incognito in my own home. And town. So imagine my surprise when I returned to fetch the dogs, only to see a pile of UNDEAD books stacked neatly beside the bill.

"Oh," I said, surprised, "I've been outed!" (Flattering, yet disconcerting, to disccover another reader who could pick me out of a lineup.)

"Yeah," he agreed. "Will you sign these for my daughter? She was really excited when she heard your dogs were coming here."

Not as excited as our dogs were. It was weird to see them back to their usual sizes, not rolling around like tumbleweeds made of fur and dog food crumbs.

So I signed, and was happy to do so, but yeah, also surprised. I expect the occasional reader to recognize MJ Davidson. Seems weird to be recognized when I'm in my disguse as a loving wife and mother (a disguise that, luckily, also fools my family). And dog owner.

That's been the best disguise of all! You know, until recently.

I (Finally) Finish UNDEAD AND UNFINISHED

Whew! That was a big one. UNDEAD AND UNFINISHED is finally, contrary to the title, finished. I don't think I've ever been so happy to type The End before. Not that I didn't love writing it, because I absolutely did. But I vastly underestimated the time and research the book required.

There's a reason I don't write historicals...I'm pathologically lazy and dislike research. But I couldn't have Betsy and Laura stumbling through, say, Salem in the 1600s without doing a teeny bit of research. And that's only one time period! I also had to go back to earlier Undead novels to figure out where Betsy was at a given time (for example, did she bite Nick the same day she woke up dead, or was it a day or two later?)

The really good news is, my usual Undead books? Run about 335 manuscript pages (take a double-spaced manuscript page with 1 inch borders, multiply the number of those pages by 250, and you have how publishers count pages). UNDEAD AND UNFINISHED? 440.

So yeah, baby! Hopefully coughing up $22.99 for this hard cover won't feel so much like felony assault.