The weekend is ramping up

A whole bunch of updates on me and various other things I pretend you all care about…

The Bandit went to the doctor today and it turns out he has the same crud the rest of the world has plus an ear infection.  Don’t kids ALWAYS get an ear infection?  At least the infection is something we can give medicine to cure.  I know he feels better because we had a good gigglefest while we worked on some of the school work he’s missed.  That’s the first time he’s really been silly since this whole thing started last Thursday.  Come hell or high water, the boy is going to school tomorrow.

BECAUSE I have taken the rest of the week plus Monday off from the soul-sucking day job to deal with the Tucson Festival of Books this weekend.  Not only am I the co-chair of the romance committee which has an amazing showing of 40 authors speaking this year, but I’m speaking on two panels, moderating two more, and tackling any number of insane organizational tasks.  We are all really, really proud of the festival – this is only the third year and already we are the fourth largest book festival in the country. 

I plan to be tweeting like a mad person through this whole weekend.  I’ve promised myself I’ll tweet every inane, amusing or snarky thing I can think of.  If you’re interested (God help you) then follow me @amylynnbright. 

I did tweet something this evening.  Sassy said, “We’re like the family of coolness!”  What prompted this exciting declaration you ask?  Do you remember doing cat’s craddle games when you were a kid?  You know, the game where you made complicated and intricate designs with a knotted string?  She has learned a few of them in school and she was dully impressed when I showed her a really complex one I can still remember (with my eyes closed) from the 4th grade.  That’s 32 years ago, people.  Sassy is absurdly impressed with all the stupid crap I know.  I’m going to revel in it now because it’s only a matter of time before I become the stupidest person on the planet.

I saved the best thing for last.  Some of you may know I’ve been having some problems with my current publisher.  I haven’t mentioned it on this site up till now in any detail at all because I was making a very concerted effort to be the mature one throughout all the dealings.  I petitioned for my rights back using the procedure as defined in my contract and was refused. 

*(&^$@@$%^&*^$@#$^%^%#$#&^^#@%^&&*%##

The above line is not a typo, it’s me editing myself.  This whole thing has been a real test to that bullshit idea that I’m trying to be more Buddhist.  The reason for the refusal was insane.  INSANE.  I got my fabulous agent involved who got nowhere.  I got my local and national representatives of Romance Writers of America involved who wrote a very sternly worded letter to the publisher promising sanctions if they didn’t comply.  Honestly, I didn’t think it would work and that I’d end up employing the lawyers that work for the Author’s Guild.  They are the wunderkind that successfully sued Google for author’s rights.  I was prepared to go all the way to court.  But, with a huge sigh of relief, everything worked out and today all my rights were reverted to me.

YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After the festival winds down this weekend, I’ll send those two novellas off to my agent who plans to send them to the big name e-pubs.  Ones with accurate accounting of royalties and who employ grown-ups.  That was little nod to snark.  I didn’t say I was a successfully practicing Buddhist.

Anyway, stay tuned…..  I promise to have stories of me going fan-girl on my favorite authors and trying not to vomit during my public speaking engagements.  How’s that for enticing?