Okey dokey! Manuscript and author questionnaire sent off to editor.

Now, I wait.

YAY, except for the waiting part.

I remember pulling out SMP's questionnaire for Haunted Ballads. A dozen typewritten pages, mostly of questions I purely had no answer for. I emailed my editor with a "WTF?" in language better suited to the grey eminence that is Ruth Cavin.

She wrote back ":::snort::: Oh, they sent you one of THOSE things. Feel free to bullshit."

Only time I ever saw her swear, until I told her about Mr. Post-It.

Those questionnaires are exactly the sort of things I can't take seriously. I just can't. I'm physically incapable of a straight answer. I try, really I do, and what comes out of the pen or keyboard is smart-ass.

This got me into my college, when I submitted the story of how I was a space alien who'd been an exotic dancer (because LOOK at me, I look exotic to aliens) in an interplanetary bar [cut for brevity] and woken up from my drugged stupor in an arroyo near Roswell.

And my CV on my company's website says I'm a Jesuit missionary and starship captain.

But otherwise, this impulse has just gotten me in trouble.

BWAH! Raq, you've seen my official bio, right? It starts off with "Deborah Grabien can claim a long personal acquaintance with the fleshpots -- and quiet little towns -- of Europe."

As Nic put it: "Mmmmmmmm....fleshpots...."

One of the nice things about being in the position of being asked to provide this stuff is that you do get to play with it.

My newest column is up at GotPoetry.com:

Wild Sex in the Working-Writer Class: Don’t worry, it happens to everyone.

Tep? New topic? Have we done "independence day"?

Amy, I was about to ask for a new topic. I think we did ID last year on the 4th, though.

But have we done "freedom" as a topic?

How about "liberation"?

Or, hell, libation. Close enough, right? And freeing, in and of itself!

Allyson, I think our agent's life is about to get even more interesting.

Just got off the phone with Daymond and his manager, Bernie Yuman.

The project is on like an on thing. Bernie, as Nic puts it, is the guy with the on button for the star machine, by way of regular appearances on Larry King and a terrifying rolodex. He's thrilled to have me aboard, he trusts Daymond's instincts (which is a very good idea, since Daymond has never yet failed at anything he ever decided he wanted to do), and I've just committed to spending tomorrow morning taking the seven-page proposal I knocked together when we first started talking about it and turning it into what he calls a "treatment" (totally Hollywood), but which seems to be a solid proposal and synopsis breakdown of the first two books, with the third one in the story arc being kept quiet for the moment, as the hook.

Current plan seems to be for me to get that off to him (and, obviously, to my agent, but first to Daymond, because it's his history we're talking about here, and it needs his approval). According to both Daymond and Bernie, after that, it becomes a question of the best way and places to pitch it, so there's probably a week in NY coming up this autumn. If I can possibly arrange it for October, I will. It would be easy to hit NY after the "Cruel Sister" premiere party at Kate's Mystery Bookstore in Cambridge, the weekend before Halloween.

Anyway - meep.