Busy week

Kristen King

www.inkthinkerblog.com — As I mentioned in an earlier post, Pickles is as much work as a newborn baby, and even more since newborn babies can’t run around your house and pull things down on themselves or leap off the couch and stun themselves. However, she does sleep occasionally, and that’s allowed me to get a LOT done this week:
– finalized the identity brochure I mentioned last weekend
– finalized the website I also mentioned last weekend
– wrote an article for the PEN newsletter
– edited (and invoiced for!) nine scholarly journal articles (and was assigned six more)
– finalized (and invoiced for!) a column for a trade journal
– finalized a brochure project that had been dragging on for-ev-er
– got an assignment for a six-part series for the same trade journal for 2007
– finalized a new assignment for a parenting magazine (the two queries I mentioned last weekend rolled into one article)
– gave a quote for a new coaching client
-finished editing proposal chapters for another memoir that’s going to blow all of your minds, currently being shopped in America after being published overseas in another language (will brag ASAP, but in the meantime, keeping my mouth shut while doing a happy dance)
– resigned from my position at andwerve literary magazine due to, shall we say, creative differences
– submitted a personal essay to Cezanne’s Carrot
– took 200 pictures of my puppy (probably a conservative estimate)
– took myself out for coffee
– actually DID my HOMEWORK (which never happens)
– caught up on my quickly filling in-box
– went through the newspapers I’d set aside over the last week and cut out articles for future reference (and then recycled the leftovers!)

Next week should bring a NEW ISSUE OF NOTES IN THE MARGIN (subscribe now if you haven’t already!), plus some work on a brochure for me and, gasp, one of the long-awaited self-promotion series articles. Tune in soon.
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www.kristenkingfreelancing.com
Finalist in 2006 Writer’s Digest Best Writer’s Website Contest

2 comments

I’m a slacker, I know

Kristen King

www.inkthinkerblog.com — Cute as she is, Pickles is a lot of work! This has been a small taste of what it will be like when I have kids. (Note to self: Wait a few more years). I’m hoping to get back to regular entries tomorrow now that she’s acclimated, and I’ll try to shut up about her already. But first, here’s a link to my Pickles album on Yahoo! Photos.

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www.kristenkingfreelancing.com
Finalist in 2006 Writer’s Digest Best Writer’s Website Contest

2 comments

More on our newest family member

Kristen King

www.inkthinkerblog.com — Okay, so this is totally unrelated to writing, but it’s the weekend and it’s cute, so I know you’ll make an exception–and think of it as research for my first Dog Fancy query.

I’ve never liked small dogs. I always thought of them as wannabe cats. Yet I am completely enamored of a three-pound, four-ounce ball of wiggles. I don’t know how this is possible, but I’m rather enjoying it.

Today, Pickles met her two cousins, who just moved back from the West Coast: a 10-year-old husky and a three-year-old rotweiller. This puppy has no fear. The husky was kind of freaked out by her, but she just licked him and walked away to play with the rottie, who was positively charmed by her. So were my parents-in-law and my sister-in-law and her husband, who all declared her “adorable” and “hilarious.”

Pickles also got some face time in with our two kitties today, and it went great. And she didn’t have a single accident all day after we took her to the vet to check out the diarrhea that had me sick to my stomach with worry from about 6 a.m., when she woke up, to about 9 when the vet said she was perfectly fine and just stressed because of her first night in a new place. (I can already tell that my future children’s pediatrician is going to HATE ME.)

She took her meds like a good girl and “went potty outside!” like a dozen times. And for clarity’s sake, that would be Pickles, not the vet. She (Pickles, that is) already knows her name, “Come,” “treat,” “go potty,” “go outside,” “go inside,” and “give mommy/daddy kisses.” My puppy is a freakin’ genius. AND she loves her collar, AND she already walks on a leash like she’s been doing it for years, and today was only her first day. My cats are kind of dumb, but maybe Pickles will rub off on them…

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www.kristenkingfreelancing.com
Finalist in 2006 Writer’s Digest Best Writer’s Website Contest

3 comments

Love at first sight

Kristen King

Meet the newest member of the King household: Pickles.

www.inkthinkerblog.com — Is this the cutest face you’ve ever seen, or what?

After about 30 minutes of the funniest play I’ve ever seen, one tinkle and two poops (all on my hardwood floor), Pickles collapsed and totally zonked out. She snoozed for about five minutes, until I had the bright idea to pick her up and try to put her in her extremely overpriced dog bed. You’d think I had electrocuted her or something the way she leapt to her feet and started playing frantically again. For some reason, she does not like the bed.

She also doesn’t like baths. We noticed a few unwelcome critters traversing her cute little body, so we popped her into the kitchen sink for an impromptu rub-a-dub-dub. She cried the whole time, even though the water was the right temperature and we used special puppy shampoo. It’s like the Biolage of puppy shampoo, so I don’t know what she was complaining about. We got most of the fleas off, but because she was shivering we pulled her out and wrapped her up in a beach towel. She immediately fell asleep, she and I got some mega cuddle time, which left me with a few fleas, but I’m pretty sure I killed the suckers when I took a marathon shower. Take that, disease-carrying vermin.

Even though we then rubbed her vigorously, switched her into a dry towel, and put her in her crate in a little puppy cocoon with a cozy little blanket, she slept like a rock. She’s still sleeping. My hope is that she doesn’t start fussing before 5 a.m. My expectation is that I’ll be up every 30 minutes checking to make sure she hasn’t spontaneously developed canine pneumonia. We’ll see how it goes.

__________________________________________
www.kristenkingfreelancing.com
Finalist in 2006 Writer’s Digest Best Writer’s Website Contest

10 comments

Self-Publishing Links from Dick

Kristen King

www.inkthinkerblog.com — Dick Margulis made some really awesome comments on my post Self-Publishing, which you should click over to and read. He included some links to related articles on other blogs, and in the interest of making them easily clickable, here they are:

Why Do Critics Ignore Certain Books? at Critical Mass

Dick Margulis sends along… (great for the comments!) at Books, Inq.

I promised… (a follow-up post), also at Books, Inq.

If you have any more relevant links, please leave them in comments and I’ll add them to the body of the post.

__________________________________________
www.kristenkingfreelancing.com
Finalist in 2006 Writer’s Digest Best Writer’s Website Contest

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