It's hard to come up with any bad things to say about a day that begins with eating apple strudel. (And yes, I know--this is the second blog entry this month that has been about apple strudel, and I guess that oughta be embarrassing. But hey, it's been a hard month. Sometimes I just need strudel!) (And plus, it tastes so good, warm out of the oven, with a latte on the side...)

I realize I am waaaay behind the times on noticing this, but just in case anybody else also missed this on the blogosphere, I absolutely adored Jim MacDonald's list of Things I've Learned from British Folk Ballads. My favorites on the list were:

"Avoid situations where the obvious rhyme-word is “maidenhead.”

"If a former significant other turns up unexpectedly after a long absence, don’t throw yourself into his/her arms right away.

"That goes double if they refuse to eat anything.

"Triple if they turn up at night and want you to leave with them immediately.

"Have nothing to do with former boyfriends who turn up and say it’s no big deal that you’re now married to someone else and have a child. If their intentions are legit, that’s got to be a problem. If it’s not a problem, their intentions are not legit.

"You are justified in cherishing the direst suspicions of a suddenly and unexpectedly returned significant other who mentions a long journey, a far shore, or a narrow bed, or who’s oddly skittish about the imminent arrival of cockcrow.

"If your girlfriend insists that you go back to sleep after some odd sound woke you, it’s time to dive out the window and run for the hills right then."

**
And I also loved NPR's excerpt from M.T. Anderson's novel Whales on Stilts (via Gwenda Bond, who always posts the coolest links). It has one of the best openings ever:

"On Career Day Lily visited her dad's work with him and discovered he worked for a mad scientist who wanted to rule the earth through destruction and desolation.

"Up until then life hadn't been very interesting for Lily."

**

In other news, I just re-read Patrick's latest YA fantasy novel, The Sleepers, which is just awesome, and am about to get cracking on one of my brother's latest fantasy stories. (Since I'm house-ridden and even couch-ridden, now is a good time for me to give crits for stories.) I'm also slowly getting back into Chapter Eight after my week of feeling way too ill to write (and then my past few days of feeling too lazy to write, once my mind was clear enough). The antibiotics are kicking in, yay, and I'm starting to feel a whole lot better, albeit with woozy spells. And I'm trying very, very hard to cope with waiting to hear back on Masks & Shadows.... A published novelist friend of mine, commiserating with me, told me that after many years in the business, she still can't believe how slowly publishing moves. So, I continue to wait (and may well continue for the next year and a half, judging by normal statistics), and bite my nails, and obsess over whether I should have cut the prologue or whether the prologue was a good idea...!

Definitely time to get back to the new novel. Most definitely.