Some things crowding my head this Saturday morning:

My new novel, obviously. Like constantly. Like at the worst moments, and the best moments, and when I’m trying to fall asleep, and when I’m showering, and making me almost miss my stop on the subway, and making me walk into strangers on the street, and drop things in the hallway while at work, like on my toes, and I have a bruise in my side from where I walked into the door when I was thinking about chapter five. If I could just dream about this novel and eat it for dinner, my life would be complete.

What am I going to do with my future, huh? This question is still floating in the air and I hope it will be decided in a few months, or at least by 2010. Factors out of my control make it undecidable now so there’s no point thinking about it, but clearly I do pointless things like thinking about things I shouldn’t be thinking about while thinking about how I shouldn’t be thinking about them, and is there a way to stop your brain from whirring? I could use a pause.

I have a novel coming out in LESS THAN TWO MONTHS HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? That’s right: Dani Noir is out September 22. I have lots to do to prepare for that launch. Updates forthcoming.

Anxiety. Related to the above three items, much of the space in my brain is filled up with this amorphous thought, which takes the shape of people’s faces sometimes, or other times it’s faceless, or like a cloud, orange sometimes or red, and this morning I had a weird dream featuring my agent, my mother, and someone who I think was supposed to be my landlord, and I woke up all the more determined to write my novel, whatever that means.

Bagels. I really love them. There isn’t a day that goes by where I’m not thinking of some food-object and today it’s bagels. I had a sesame.

New ideas. I have some. One is the idea for the next YA. No worries—I wrote it down and will go back to it later. But two are ideas for new tween novels, the age level of Dani Noir, and I really want to work on them, but I have tons to do this weekend, so it’ll have to wait.

How I may change up this blog. Make it less personal. Or delete it entirely. Is there a poll I can add where you can have a vote? ETA: There is! See below.