I'm so excited...

"and I just can't hide it. I'm about to lose control and I think I like it..."

Just one more day before I fly off to NY for a whirlwind weekend at the big show. I find myself trying to do 10 things at once getting ready to prepare. I figured just packing would be a 3-4 day process and I started on Monday. I can't say much about it specifically, so I'll talk generally. My schedule will be jam-packed with travel, customer service, networking, booth-maintenance and partying. Yes that's right. Us book-folk like to party hardy! We make absolutely any excuse to get together and have fun. You wouldn't necessarily think of book people that way, but we are social creatures by necessity. Our job is people and we are constantly connecting with each other. Authors are celebrities, teachers and librarians are nurturers, book buyers are demi-gods and publishers are creative beacons.

Off I go to do some more packing and fill numerous small 3 0z, plane-friendly tubes with various beauty gooks. Wish me luck! I'll try to post some pictures when I come back

Why I don't talk about work...

 
It's far too dangerous.
 
Publisher's Weekly Article: The Big Chill

Blast from the Past!

At the wee age of 17, after attending the Lilith Fair, I decided to marry my fervor for a new type of music with my desire to make a mark on the internet and created a fan website. The celebrity was Abra Moore, a talented singer, not terribly famous but well-known amongst a devoted following and in the late '90s, at the height of her success. The plan was that information was manageable and traffic would be moderate. Exactly what I needed to start up my very first website.

I never quite completed it. It was more work than I had imagined and I still to this day don't quite have the knack of HTML coding. But I'm proud of my little venture.

It's not up any more but thanks to Archive.org you are able to see a bare-bones archived copy of my site.

Raquel's Abra Moore Website
http://web.archive.org/web/20010711181029/members.aol.com/gerenukz/music.html

If you've ever had a burr stick to your clothes...

... and liked it, then please please please check out this website.

Joie de Vivre et Joie de Blog

I've been shamefully neglecting this poor blog. My mind wanders back to it on ocassion but when I start to contemplate it's future I only come with ideas for several other blogs. What hinders me most about this blog is it's title. I'm thinking of either changing it or abandoning it completely for other potential projects. For example...
 
A book blog would be fun to write. I'm not terribly good at writing reviews (I'll leave that to Bev who's a born professional in that department), so my blog would be more about the book business. But the business is so broad. Would I focus on publishing versus bookselling? Since I'm in children's publishing, would it be focused on children's books? All of this presents a major dilemma, which is personal and professional bias. I'd basically be raving about the company I work for and all the excellent books we produce. Plus it would be a financial burden to buy books from other publishers to keep up with the joneses. Who's going to send free galleys to someone who works at a rival publisher! Scratch that idea right off the bat!
More realistic ideas include a classic movie blog. That would be exciting. But it wouldn't be full of boring movie reviews. No! It would have movie-inspired articles. I could talk about my passion for blonde-Bette Davis films, how I'm half in love with Richard Barthelmess and how Norma Shearer is highly under-rated as an actress and as a woman. It would also be a vehicle to express my love and devotion to Turner Classic Movies and to recognize Netflix, which has an awe-inspiring variety of classic DVDs for rental which allows me to feed the fire!
 
My other idea, which is my personal favorite, would be a blog chronicling my Spring and Summer. I've made plans to have the most fun-filled summer ever! I'm filling my calendar with lots of exciting things to do. My goal is to develop my social life and become more adventurous and outgoing. I'm obligating myself to accept more invitations even at the cost of slight personal embarassment or discomfort, which is just simply a result of my deep-seated shyness. I actually started this new experiment in March and have so far attended or planned 10 social events. So if I want to chronicle this new chapter in my life, I need to start straight away!
 
Well here's to happy adventures in blogging and a potentially life-altering year!