Hey everyone,

Okay, so you probably know about MarniBates.com by now since you’re reading this post here…whatever. I’m still excited about it. In fact, I was so excited to see who would be the first friend to comment on my website that I stared at my Facebook screen for hours.

And it took people forever to notice.

(Laura F. You were the first non-relative! You get *FIFTY Marni Points!)

Or maybe it only felt that way. I’m lacking in the patience department. Don’t believe me? There is a Very Important Meeting that a Very Important Person is having about me tomorrow and I roughly calculated the number of minutes until I was likely to hear about how it went.

1,680 minutes was my conservative estimate.

I’m sure my super agent Laurie McLean really appreciated that I did the math for her. And then excitedly tweeted her with my calculation. To be fair, I have yet to tweet a revised countdown. I see this as a step in the right direction.

Anyhow, as soon as I have clearance to share about this meeting, I’ll be sure to blab blog all about it here.

So keep checking in.

In other news…I went shopping for Formal Attire. Since I’m going to be a panelist at the Willamette Writers’ Conference from August 4th to the 7th, I have to look classy. Impressive. Mature. Or at least, you know, not fourteen. People tell me all the time that someday I’ll be glad that people think I’m a solid seven years younger than I am, based solely on the cheerful plumpness of my face.

But how should someone even respond to that? “That’s nice of you, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to look like a wrinkled old crone. Maybe I’ll have better luck in my next lifetime?”

Shrug.

Anyhow, I spent this 4th of July putting money back into the American economy. Which earns me *FIFTY Patriotic Points! Or it would if that factored into my decision at all. But it didn’t. My aunt’s discount coupon was about to expire. That earns me *FIFTY Thrifty Points!

I’m having too much fun with my points system.

So back to real news…I sort of messed up my mom’s home computer when I tried to link my laptop to the printer. This story does have a happy ending though. You see, after I spent hours trying to fix the bloody thing, I called in a computer repair guy. He was so impressive! He was working on three computers at once and he was able to work printer magic too! I half expected him to turn to me and say:

“000000100001100110000001000011110011”

Alas, he did not.

But because of his ability to communicate with machines due to his own robotics fix things, I printed out pictures of celebrities I can easily picture playing my characters if it were a movie. I’m going to do a storyboard/collage so that I can visualize it in a whole new way! I’ve also been editing the book (Even though it’s not complete yet, there is a method to my madness!) and I’m getting a really good feel for my characters.

Between the website, the collage, the editing, the family in town, and the babysitting…I’ve been pretty busy lately.

But I’ve made room for one last thing: SEQUINS!

My close family friend is marrying my cousin’s half-brother (we set them up!) and my aunt is making her wedding gown. The material is just stunning. There is only one problem: it looks like a sparkle factory blew up and this beautiful off-white lace wasn’t able to flee quickly enough.

So I have been pulling out sequins. Lots and lots of sequins.

But when she walks down the aisle in her gorgeous, one of a kind, non-sequin dress, it will all be worth it. Plus I had no idea what to get her for a wedding present since she refuses to do a gift registry.

Now you’re all caught up on the recent SEQUINS of events.

(Gotta love a good pun. Or a really bad one!)

More later,

Marni

*Marni Points earn exclusive bragging right but are otherwise meaningless 🙂

*Patriotic Points are best handled with extreme caution.

*Thrifty Points earn more bragging rights. And visits to used clothing stores.