Birthdays, Cakes, and Catacombs

This is just a general, life-y, update-y sort of post. And that picture up there is by Little Brother. *plug plug* Every time I blog he's like, "And link to myyyyy blog, too," so LOOK, EVERYONE, TOMMY'S BLOG, VISIT IT.  xD But it really is a pretty picture. Good job, Little Brother.

Anyway, that was the view from the terrace where we had my birthday last weekend.

I turned twenty.

Ew.

There was lovely, lovely cake with The Peculiar's cover on it as a surprise.

Cake. Surprised Stefan

The cake was strawberry mousse and sponge. So good. Even the printed fondant stuff tasted scrumptious.

The next day we went on a mountain hike with my Oma and Opa, which is what one calls one's grandparents if one's grandparents are Swiss.

Hikinnnnng.

While we were hiking I talked to Oma a bit. Now, let me tell you a tiny bit about my Oma. She's very sharp and funny, which I only realized recently for some reason. She lived in Germany during World War II which kind of blows my mind. She went paragliding for her 70th birthday. She told me a story, and I thought it was kind of hilarious, soooo: telling you now.

Hem-hem: (she told it in English, so this is authentic dialect, mmhm.)


"Have you heard seh story of seh little mouse, seh little mitzeli? I tell you. I tell seh story. Ser vas a little mouse, yes, and she found a round of cheese in seh Vorratskammer, and she ate and ate and ate, and she ate and ate and ate and ate and ate and ate and then seh mouse, she exploded."

...

That's it. That's literally the whole story. Didn't you find that to be a brilliant examination of societal ills, told through understated characterization with spare precision and subtly mounting tension that builds to a shocking final twist? I know, me too. The moral, I think, is that if you give a mouse a round of cheese it will explode, which is IMPORTANT TO KNOW.

Hike pictures:

We ran into some cows along the way.

Oma and Opa have a mentally challenged dog. Here he is enjoying the view, which for once is a thing he does that makes sense.

About halfway up the mountain are these old bunkers carved into the rock face in case of INVASION, and Little Brother and I wandered in, and it was creepyyyyy. I was instantly inspired for a scene in the book I'm writing now, because it takes place underground, and in the dark, and bla-bitty-bla.

The entrance. You can't tell, but it's drilled into a rock-face along a little mountain path.

Bunker door.

Getting darker.

Ok, this *looks* bright and normal because of the camera flash, but at this point everything was pitch black, and that is me, flailing blindly. SO CREEPY, I TELL YOU.

Ooky walls. Only saw this when I was back at the computer. They were all slimy and knobby, like the inside of a fish or something.

Also, I got Whatnot jacket proofs and they're gawgeous and shiny.

The book inside is not mine. I stole a copy of Valley of Heroes by Jonathon Stroud from my shelf because it was the right length and had deckle edges, and then put it in my jacket. IMPOSTER.

Bye. :)

THE WHATNOT Sneak-peak!

Made A Discovery the other day: The first 40 or so pages of The Whatnot are online. Usually whenever I see a link to an excerpt I will click on it, read the first sentence or two, be like, "Ohhh, intriguing," and then run away, because a) reading online is annoying and b) if I get hooked I will PINE for the book until it comes out, usually months and months later, and that's even more annoying.

But here it is ANYWAY. I don't think there are any spoilers in the first 40 pages. I might be wrong, though, so if you haven't read The Peculiar, you may want to skip this. Or if you have no intention of reading The Peculiar than you can read this regardless of spoilers because I've heard it's possible to read as a stand alone. :)

THE WHATNOT Sneak-peak

(Also, this is an excerpt from the ARC, so it's an uncorrected proof copy, there might be mistakes, blablabla, typos, silly writer, hope you guys are having a great day, byeeeee!)