If it seems like I'm posting a lot of pictures lately, it's because I only recently had all the photos on my camera downloaded to a flashdrive, thus allowing me to post them in the absense of a GSB cable.

( Dude, Where's My Cow?Collapse )



And now, for something entirely different:

( The Death of a GiantCollapse )


If you look at my location, you will see that I am still in the Fortress of Moderate Crazy. Eventually, this may change and I may find myself in the Fortress of Raging Insanity.

Last night, I stayed up late to finish reading the first pass pages of IN3 — which is the last time I’ll get to make changes in the book before it goes to printing. (This isn’t the last time anyone will look over it before printing, though; a team of proofreaders will do second and third passes on it, until it needs no more work.)

Historically, my first pass pages have all been . . . interesting. INCARNATE had HoHugging and similar hilarity. (Not to mention a missing paragraph and migrating dialogue tags!) ASUNDER had these weird symbols wherever apostrophes and quotes were italicized.

IN3 was almost uneventful. The pages were notable only for the absence of those little scene divider images, where scene breaks fall at the top or bottom of the page.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be changes, though. The pages sticking out to the left are all the pages I’m sending back to my editor, so she can put my changes in the master document that lives at HarperCollins.

First pass pages are printed to look like the book. They’re in the book layout, with the font and chapter headers and all of that. They’re what ARCs — Advance Reader Copies — are printed from. Changes in the first pass stage are supposed to be minor: fixing typos, word rep, HoHugging, spacing, or whatever. A chapter title changed in ASUNDER. My changes are typically very minor at this point, but I know other writers who’ve added scenes, changed endings, etc.

Still, there are quite a few minor things changing in IN3. The ARCs printed won’t reflect these changes. Only the final copy.

I love ARCs — I love getting them and reading them before other people (and the taunting that goes along with) — but I’m going to tell you a true story: I cringe whenever I see someone reading an ARC weeks/months/years after publication, because I know what kind of changes I make between ARCs and final copies. I can’t even guess what other authors do!

I’m really, really excited about IN3 ARCs going out into the world in a few months. And I’m dealing with the fact that advance readers will see that hideous word repetition on page whatever. But I’m really looking forward to final copies in January/February next year, because they will be clean and shiny. (And that sentence — no, don’t look at it! — will be better structured.)

But speaking of IN3 ARCs, have you entered my giveaway to win one of the very first ones?

Originally published at Jodi Meadows. You can comment here or there.

There are people keeping you from writing in your life. Some of them may be small, squirming, cute little creatures who think they need you constantly and weep piteously every time you try to move away from them. I had five of these and I understand the temptation to give up writing time for them. But there are other people who are stealing your writing time and I urge you to identify and stop them.

1. You are keeping yourself from writing. You have a million excuses. Sometimes you are keeping yourself from your best writing by working on projects you think are “more commercial,” but which you don’t actually love. Sometimes you are keeping yourself from your writing because you are afraid or because you don’t believe you are good enough. Sometimes you are keeping yourself from writing because you are refusing to admit that you need some medication or assistance with other work or because you need to say no more often to other things.

2. Old voices from your past. It could be an old teacher who told you you could never become a writer because you don’t know your grammar well enough. It could be a parent who told you that writing isn’t a “real job.” It could be an old “friend” who read one of your first works and then ridiculed you mercilessly about it the rest of the time that you were “friends.”

3. A spouse is actively sabotaging your writing. I have seen this happen on occasion. Most of the time, writers struggle with spouses who simply don’t understand what it means to be a creative type. They often mean to be supportive, but sometimes are doing it in the wrong way (by offering suggestions that are completely useless). But there are spouses who are competitive and simply mean. If you married one before you knew you were a writer, you may have to choose between the marriage and your dreams.

4. Your writing group acts like crabs in a barrel. They have stopped really trying to get published and they have certainly stopped trying to help you become a better writer. Instead, every group meeting devolves into a rehashing of all the old problems your earliest manuscripts showed and a list of everything wrong with the current book, with no kind words about how you’ve improved and no useful suggestions.

5. Children or parents who are afraid that your writing may in some way embarrass them. They are constantly asking to see manuscripts so they can “vet” them by giving you approval that your version of them is “correct.” This can happen whether or not you are writing anything remotely non-fictional. Sometimes people see themselves in characters where they are not. But even if you intended the comparison, it doesn’t help to have them give you “feedback.”

6. An agent who never sends anything out. If you have an agent who acts more as a block to you finding the right editor for your book than as a guide to the publishing world, it may be time to part ways. I often tell writers that the problem isn’t their agent, it’s themselves, but there are times when it’s the agent. If your agent doesn’t like anything you write or can’t see potential in it, then you have the wrong agent for you.

7. An editor who has damaged you so badly by rewriting things for you that you stare at the blank page with horror. I have heard stories of this, though it has never happened to me. Editors should NEVER EVER rewrite for an author. On rare occasions, I have had editors suggest “something like this?” But an editor who is writing lines for you is an editor who is trying to usurp your position as a writer.

8.A friend who keeps talking about the books you used to write. It may be that this is intended kindly, I don’t know. But in my experience, looking backward is not a good thing. If you have abandoned a project from the past, there is probably a good reason for it. Hitting your head against the same wall again and again is not productive creatively.

9. Co-workers at your day job/neighborhood friends who are constantly giving you advice on what book you should write next to “make it big.” What sells big and what you want to write are completely different things. What sells big and what you are uniquely able to write well are completely different things. You need to write from your heart more than you need to write what someone thinks is “easy.”

10.Critics of your last book that sold badly. I know this one intimately well, believe me. One of the problems here is reading reviews of your own books. Reviews are not meant for the author. Really, they aren’t. They aren’t kind attempts to help you become better. If they were, the reviewers would send them to you and to no one else (although sometimes on twitter, it can feel that’s what they are doing). Reviews are for readers. They are to help readers find books like other ones they liked. They have nothing to do with writing. NOTHING.

This is the stuff I use to do my nails with! And even clumsy as I am, it comes out great. My nails are short so I do the cut-in-half trick in the tutorial for double the manicure for the money, and I can find Sally Hansen Salon Effects online for half what they cost at Walgreens. I've tried some cheap knock-off brands with weak results, but Nail Fraud is also excellent and comes in a neat black and silver houndstooth.

Tuesday May 21, 2013 From Twitter: Peace Corps ‏@PeaceCorps
Proud to announce we'll begin accepting Volunteer apps from same-sex domestic partners who want to serve together http://1.usa.gov/16McG2M
Retweeted by rivenhomewood

***From Twitter: Media Matters ‏@mmfa
NRA lists the 'coolest gun movies': http://bit.ly/10SdID9 Flashback: NRA blames mass shootings on movies http://mm4a.org/UkYROn
Retweeted by Dan Savage

***Shopping: The Wedge Coop. Steeple People Thrift Store, where I found a couple of things I needed.

On to the Dollar Store on Franklin Avenue, and the nearby Aldi grocery.

***"DARE [Dictionary of American Regional English] has received a grant from NEH to do a pilot study in Wisconsin to
test a new Questionnaire and a new methodology for a second round of nationwide fieldwork.

"This time we won't be using Word Wagons--instead, the survey will be conducted online. We are working with the University of Wisconsin Survey Center to develop the method, and we will include a recorded telephone interview to collect phonological data for comparison with the original DARE recordings.

"We plan to omit questions for practices that are now obsolete (farming with oxen, kinds of sleigh, etc) and add questions that reflect changes in our society over the last 50 years."

And what questions will they be asking 50 years from now?

Master, bless.

My most precious ones,

it is grey outside... A perfect day to putter.

Which is what I have been doing.

I am even more inspired, when I think of my upcoming writing projects, because of the work I shall be doing on Quietus 2016. Writing is a solitary activity -and I need a lot of solitude in my life- but the more communal aspects of organizing a small convention will provide me with good balance.

By the time registration begins in the summer of 2015 (not long after MISTI-Con 15), I shall have the most important things ready and worked out. Not all that long after registration starts, there will be a call for papers (I only plan on having two tracks at the most, if two are needed); drinkingcocoa and karen_jk are already sort of on the roster. And I suppose I shall ramble a little as well?

It is exciting; I feel joyous about it all.

I shall have published A Princely Calling before MISTI 15 (that book will be published around the summer of 2014), and Outlaw just in time for MISTI 15. I shall also publish The Magic of Love this autumn, and perhaps I shall have all three books, The Magic of Love, The Magic of Hope and The Magic of Freedom ready in time for Quietus 16. I am not sure, but it might be possible! We shall see.

I have started putting together the website for Quietus; you can take a look at it here. I have also created a livejournal community for it: quietuscon.

I rather like the banner on the website; it came with that particular blog theme, but the photograph of the book spines immediately reminded me of Professor Snape's books at Spinner's End. It looks, well... Quiet ;-)

And speaking of Quietus, even though there is still tons of time to go, what do these dates sound like to you? June 23-26 2016 (four days). Once I have found the right location -which will probably be as early as this summer- and crunched the numbers (room rental and so on), I shall get a Kickstarter campaign going so I have the deposit required to sign the contract, and thus have the space and dates secured. There will be many details to figure out, and one cannot start too soon, I would say... Especially when it is the first such event. If it all goes well, and my loved ones find the convention enjoyable, a second event would necessitate less preparation time (not the three years I am giving myself now!).

Actually, I already have the first exciting Quietus news for you! Just now, hot off the press. I am delighted to tell you that my dearest ladytesser is going to organize a tea corner during the mystical faire, and the craft faire/book signing, with complementary teas from The Herb Corner. One of the teas that will be offered is called "Just Don't Give a Sh---" tea, and she vouches for its relaxing properties ;-) I shall be sharing this happy bit of news on the Quietus website in a few moments.

In other news, I have been reading Rik Potter's book The Boy Who Lived: Magical Spirituality in the Harry Potter Universe, and it is truly wonderful. It is moving and mystical; it is just the sort of thing I needed to read at this point in my life. I shall share more of my impressions when I have finished reading it.

Now... I think I shall scribble a little.

Your devoted
Logospilgrim, the quiet professor

I've seen it come up several times on Dreamwidth (haven't checked LJ yet), and I'm sure it's all over Twitter and Tumblr. But.

John Scalzi's breakdown of the Kindle Worlds licensed fanfic thing, and why it's not a good deal for fanfic writers.

You can check out Amazon's info on the subject.

I notice that they say that there are "content guidelines" for each fandom, but they don't link to the guidelines for the three fandoms that they've licensed. I wonder if they plan on forbidding f/f and m/m in the extremly heterocentric Vampire Diaries universe, for example. I mean, the majority of the show is built around that annoying love triangle. (You may love it! Feel free to! I don't actually hate it, but I am frustrated by how it's taken over so much of the plot.)

Also, I notice that there are no editing requirements, which. I am not going to pay for unedited drivel, okay? At least with free fanfic, I can back-button hard and fast if I uncover bad writing (or spelling and grammar). Maybe that's contained under the "we don't accept books that provide a poor customer experience" clause? They reserve the right to decide what constitutes that, after all.

Honestly, if you want to pay to read Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl, or Pretty Little Liars fanfic, I'm sure you can find plenty of fans who would take your money. (I mean, hell, I would.)

Oh, Amazon. I do hope this gets shut down hard. I just don't see this working out well for the writers you sucker into it. I wonder if SFWA is going to get involved?

ETA: fandom_lounge has also gotten in on the commentary about this.

This entry has been cross-posted to Dreamwidth ( comments). Comments are welcome on either post.

Apparently, like Disney wanting a trademark on the phrase Dio de los Muertos, Fox wants nothing else to exist that might confuse people.

It would be laughable if it weren't for the fact that to file a DMCA takedown notice that the filer must affirm under penalty of perjury that all the facts are true. Considering that there is no way Doctorow's book could be confused for the TV series, that person committed perjury because they clearly had no clue.

http://boingboing.net/2013/04/22/fox-sends-fraudulent-takedown.html

1. Print it on specially colored paper.
2. Turn one of your pages upside down to see it is read that far.
3. Send it in with a bribe of some kind, like chocolate.
4. Declare that your kids love your book.
5. Threaten, in a joking way, what you will do if it isn't published.
6. Describe the publishing industry as a waste of time.
7. Diss books published by agent or editor you are querying.
8. Talk about your book in vague terms, with no specifics.
9. Compliment yourself on how great your book is and how many copies it will sell.
10. End your letter with the words "You don't want to miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime chance" that sounds like what a car dealer would say.

1. Have a killer hook.
2. Show you read in the genre by naming a book that hasn't been made into a movie.
3. Use good punctuation.
4. Proofread your manuscript.
5. Don't ask the agent to read the new version a week after you've sent the first one.
6. Pitch one book at a time.
7. Have a killer setting.
8. Have good dialog.
9. Show, don't tell.
10. Do something uniquely well.

Fascinating discussion on "All In With Chris Hayes" about how a tornado works.



This storm is now officially an EF-5, the strongest grade of storm known, with winds up to 210 miles an hour. According to the Huffington Post:

Several meteorologists contacted by The Associated Press used real time measurements, some made by Schumacher, to calculate the energy released during the storm's 40-minute life span. Their estimates ranged from 8 times to more than 600 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb, with more experts at the high end. Their calculations were based on energy measured in the air and then multiplied over the size and duration of the storm.

With that kind of power, it's a wonder we have only 24 dead (revised downward from 51 yesterday).

Watch Chris Hayes' coverage of this if you can. He's doing a spectacular job.

I made soup!

( recipeCollapse )

I bought a bag of greens because I saw it at Trader Joe's and kale is good for you and then I thought "OK what am I going to make with this?" So I made soup. It's pretty good!

because it beats the alternatives.

A few weeks ago it was recommended that I get hearing aides. I've had a loss in my left year for ages, now my right ear has a loss. It's really not too bad, but in a noisy environment my hearing can shut down. The thing that really offers an advantage is that it could improve my tinnitus, which at times drives me nuts.

A pair of hearing aides costs about US$1,000 after insurance. And because Adobe is being a bunch of rectal haberdashers by making all of their software subscription-only, I need to buy a $600 software package.

So I cashed out a fund that I've been sitting on. Got a check today for a bit under $2700. Gets me the hearing aides, the software, and a substantial chunk towards a new (though used) camera body.

I recently found out that my bank offers an app that allows you to deposit checks via phone. Great!, thinks I, in my naivete. I download said app, and find out that it can only deposit a maximum of $2500 on a single check.

My closest branch and ATM is 100 miles away. I opened the account when I was living in Las Cruces, and I've been very happy with their service, and very unhappy with the service of the local banks, thus I am disinclined to relocate my funds.

So it looks like we'll deposit the check in my wife's account, use her card to pay for everything, then she'll write me a check for the balance that I'll either scan or deposit when we're in Colorado next week as there's a branch of my bank near where we'll be staying.

*sigh*


I really shouldn't bitch. What I'm trying to do would have been pretty much inconceivable ten years ago.

My friend Rich is running an RPG set in Three Musketeers era France, only there's also some magic. We're using a rules system called Fortune's Fool, which is pretty neat. It's diceless: you use a tarot deck to resolve all events.

I've only gotten to play in it twice since he has the sheer temerity to run it 500 miles from where I live! But my wife Russet and I did get to play in it Saturday night. We had a tradition, once upon a time, while playing Champions, to write up mission reports after an evening's play, and we'd award XP since that became a record of the campaign that could be referred to. Even though Rich hasn't announced he'll give rewards for such things, I felt it incumbent upon me to write one up and really get in to the language. My character is a musketeer of de Tréville's troop and was assigned an investigation by he himself, so I thought the report fit the situation quite well.

It probably doesn't help that I've been reading Beethoven's letters.

For those of you who couldn't care less about such things, I've placed it all behind a cut.

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Poll #1914741 just a man and his will to survive
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 130

What kind of tiger?

Ticky?

One more birth.

One more death.

Sunrise, sunset, swiftly fly the years.( Read more...Collapse )

This entry was originally posted at http://wcg.dreamwidth.org/1532353.html. You may comment here using your Livejournal account; or comment there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth account.

"Why did you build houses where tornadeos were apt to happen?"
—Pat Robertson, on recent storm deaths

So by extension, why did you build houses in New Orleans? Or near the Jersey Shore? Or along the San Andreas Fault?

I think he was exposed to too many nasty chemicals while diamond mining, or maybe it came pre-addled?

I heard one of the tornados was ONE MILE WIDE at its base. Frankly, I'm surprised the death toll isn't significantly higher.

1. You are letting people tell you that you should be doing other things with your time.

2. You can’t live with the level of clean that your family accepts as normal.

3. You haven’t decided to treat your writing seriously and so no one around you treats it seriously, either.

4. You haven’t made yourself a writing space.

5. You haven’t realized that you need help.

6. You do what is urgent rather than what is necessary.

7. You don’t let your kids and other people solve their own problems.

8. You think that someday you will have more time for writing.

9. You are spending time doing things you actually don’t care about.

10. You are actually using distractions as an excuse not to write.

11. You are terrified of writing, of actually sitting down and putting yourself on the page.

12. You are too busy criticizing the best selling books that you are reading to write something better.

13. You don’t know what to do with a blank page.

14. You don’t know how to turn off your internal editor.

15. You talk a good game, but you don’t play it.

16. You need to do a little planning and research before you start.

17. You don’t actually like writing. You like having written. (Join the club.)

18. You need to write the first line of the next chapter before leaving for the day.

19. You need to spend time remembering what it is you love about writing.

20. You have convinced yourself that you need 2 hours to write and don’t know how to use the 20 minute chunks you actually have.

21. You don’t have notebooks scattered through the house, including in the bathroom, to jot down inspiration.

I was so insanely tired after the weekend I've fallen down on my sketching. But to make it up to you, I present this splendid bear drawn for me at MECAF by splendid Ellen T. Crenshaw.  
 
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Splendid!

Oh, gosh. Here's your weepy moment for the day.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50147264n

Terriers, man. You can't keep a schnauzer down.

It always amazes me how getting a couple of big, mentally taxing projects (like, say, a major novelette commission and the Very Important Third Book Of A Trilogy) squared away opens out the horizons. There are suddenly more hours in the day, and more energy to get stuff done in those hours.

Creative work is really emotionally taxing. The more ambitious it is, the more taxing. I've been struggling, the past couple of months, to get the basics done--dishes washed, bills paid, exercise exercised. Now that the book and one of May's two novelettes are done, suddenly my head is full of room.

Case in point: after yesterday's marathon work session, I'm achy and exhausted and this morning's run was kinda brutal (and truncated by two families of geese, who I was unwilling to disturb in order to run along the trail they were hanging out on) but I still got All The Procrastinated Errands Done this morning, and more will happen this afternoon.

And I've reread what I have on the month's other novelette, which is actually probably going to be a short novella, and I like it! It's good!

I just have to figure out the twist and the rest of the caper, and I'm good to go.

Brave companions of the road: one of two families of feathered dinosaurs encountered on this morning's jog. The other was a two-parent household with younger goslings, still in the mottled yellow and brown stage. I decided to let them have the path, preferring my arms unbroken.

Excelsior!

Timeline is one of the trickiest things for me as an author. This may be because I don’t outline or it may be a problem for all authors and all books. For me, there were two distinct tasks involved in this.

1. Condensing events

My first draft of The Rose Throne had Issa and Ailsbet begin as pre-teens, about age 11. They met each other briefly, became friends, and then spent another 6-7 years apart before meeting again at age 17. I think I did this in part because I was used to spending a lot of time building backstory for my main characters. In The Princess and the Hound, Prince George begins as a young child and ages up through about 70 pages of the book.

But The Rose Throne was a very different book than The Princess and the Hound, in part because there were two viewpoint characters who grew up in different kingdoms and had very different views of the magic system which they actually share. But in addition to that, I think The Rose Throne is for an older audience than The Princess and the Hound. And there were other reasons for me to condense the story, which included the fact that if Issa and Ailsbet had met and become friends as younger figures, a lot of the narrative tension around their relationship was taken away from the rest of the book.

I cannot say how often I have done critiques on manuscripts in which I tell the author that the timeline needs to be condensed. It’s a major change, but increasing the tension often makes other narrative problems disappear or at least become easier to fix. It improves pacing enormously and makes the structure of the novel really pop out and make itself obvious. If you are meandering through your plot slowly, more tension will help you find your climax and move toward it more easily.

2. Day by day

So the second timeline issue was a chapter-by-chapter day-by-day issue. This happened at a much later stage in the process, at nearly the final revision before copyediting. After I had condensed the book events into one year, I needed to make sure that the seasons were right for each chapter and scene, and that events happened in the right order. You would be surprised at how often I had to shift things backward or forward in time so that one event that caused another didn’t happen chronologically after it in my narrative.

What I did to fix this problem was make a chart for each chapter and then type in a date. Now, the kingdoms of Rurik and Weirland don’t have our Roman calendar and I purposely never referred to our months or days of the week. I always feel like fantasy loses its sense of other-worldliness if it relies on our conventions too much (unless it’s set in our world, in which case, it’s fine). So instead I used seasons and day numbers. Each event happened on a given day in a given season. When I put them all together with a short one-sentence explanation of each chapter, I could glance through and make sure there weren’t any long, unexplained absences (which, of course there were, but I had to fix). I also could see whether too much happened in one stretch. This visual was a useful way to make sure the scenes were organized properly and that the events happened in a measured fashion.

I still have trouble with timeline in most books that I am working on now. Maybe one day I will figure out a way to hold it all in my head and not make a mistake. Ha!

I've been making my own granola for a while now. It's lots of fun to pile heaps and heaps of stuff in a bowl, like a bucket of horsefeed. And it makes the house smell amazing.

I keep tweaking online recipes to my own tastes, and then forgetting my tweaks, so I'm writing this one down. This is mostly based on Andy Fairfield's Granola, with extra stuff.

(lonelywalker, basically everything in this recipe can kill you, so please never make it.)

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http://st-aurafina.dreamwidth.org/194491.html | comments | Comment at Dreamwidth

The images coming out of Moore, Oklahoma are just incredible.

51 people dead (as of this writing). A mile-wide swath of destruction. At least an EF-4 in strength, perhaps an EF-5. 200+ mph winds.

And even after this, there will still be assholes who deny the reality of climate change.





This entry was originally posted at http://redheadedfemme.dreamwidth.org/149174.html. Comment either here or there.

Ding dong, the draft is dead.

That's "The Heart's Filthy Lesson," handed in at exactly the contracted length (10K: The manuscript is 10K manuscript (40 pages in manuscript format) ~9.3K MS Word.)

This old features writer still has enough column-inch damage that it feels awfully good to dial it after running 25% long on that damned book last month. *g* 

Now there's just one more June 1 deadline I should really try to hit. And, oh yeah, a cross-country flight, two ten hour drives, and a convention guest gig in the middle.

Where's my fucking Wonder Woman icon?

Oh yeah, I'll be at Up In The Aether in Detroit this weekend with my beloved Mr. Lynch! Come out and play!

***
travel and appearances 2013:

Up in the Aether: Detroit, MI, May 23-27 2013
4th Street Fantasy: Minneapolis, MN, June 21-24, 2013
American Library Association (guest speaker): Chicago IL, June 28-30 2013
ConVergence: Minneapolis, MN July 4-8, 2013
Readercon: Burlington, MA, July 11-14, 2013
Space City Con: Houston, TX August 2-4, 2013 (Literary Guest of Honor)
Lone Star Con (San Antonio Worldcon): San Antonio, TX, August 29-September 1 2013
Context: Columbus, OH, September 27-29 2013 (GoH)
Signing (and Scott Lynch's The Republic of Thieves book launch!) : Pandemonium, Central Square, Cambridge MA, October 8th 2013
NYC ComiCon: NY NY, October 11th 2013 (only)
Viable Paradise: Oak Bluffs MA, October 12-16 2013 
World Fantasy Convention: Brighton England UK, October 31-November 3, 2013


2013:

OWW EC: April 15, 2013
Popular Science flash: April 22, 2013
Steles of the Sky final: May 1, 2013
"The Heart's Filthy Lesson": July 1, 2013
"Dark Leader": April 2013
"Green and Dying": June 1, 2013
Hieroglyph story: August 10, 2013
"Something's Gotta Eat T. rexes": October 2013

An Apprentice to Elves: ?


2014:

Karen Memory: January 6, 2014


travel and appearances:
RavenCon: North Chesterfield, Virginia, April 25-27th, 2014 (Guest of Honor)
ConVergence: Minneapolis, MN, July 3-7, 2014
Finncon: Jyväskylä, Finland, July 11-13, 2014 (Guest of Honor)
Worldcon: London, England, August 14-17, 2014



No fixed deadline:

Smile (unless its name is actually Salt Water)
Unsuitable Metal
Gotham Jazz
Untitled Gangland Urban Fantasy That Keeps Bugging Me
"Gallowglas"
"Untitled Space Opera Thingy" aka "Periastron"
"Posthumous Jonson"
"Steel"
"On Safari in R'lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera"
"This Chance Planet"
"Flush"
"Coronado"
"Patience and Fortitude"
"A Time to Reap"

We went and saw it last night, our final night in Phoenix, so we could see it in a really good theatre. And frankly, I was disappointed. It was good for a summer action movie, and it wasn't bad for science fiction, but some aspects of the story I was very unhappy with. My wife and I talked about it all the way home, well, all the way back to my parent's house. We had some similar complaints.

And since it's a new movie that some may not have seen yet, I'm putting the rest under a cut.

And if you want to read some criticism of the science, take a look at the Bad Astronomy blog: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/05/17/bad_astronomy_review_star_trek_into_darkness.html

And frankly, this diminishes my interest in seeing what Abrams does with Star Wars. I expected a lot more out of his Trek reboot, for me he did not deliver.

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Master, bless.

My most precious ones,

ah, 'tis a wonderful, quiet day here...

The sky is grey and tranquil, and I have got Harold and Maude playing in the background.

I have got more MISTI pictures for you, courtesy of alatariel.

Seated in the common room...

Rambling during my book signing:



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In other news, it seems that my idea for a convention of introverts, Quietus 2016 (see my previous post), has some appeal!

I believe I am capable of doing this. I have very good organization skills, I get things done, I am meticulous and determined, and I shall have plenty of excellent assistance.

I have been taking notes, drawing up preliminary schedules. This event would be communal, simple, quiet, and mystical (I have scheduled a "mystical faire" -tarot readings and things of that nature- on the saturday). Laid back and merry.

I am thinking that anything between 80-100 people would be ideal, but I could go up to 150 as an absolute limit. I think that my 80-100 people estimate is more likely.

I have scheduled a total of eight hours for lectures, possibly. So there might perhaps be two tracks, depending upon the amount of proposals. As I wrote yesterday, there will not be much going on at once during this convention; hardly anything going on all at the same time. It will be mostly this thing, then that thing.

There is a place I shall be checking out at some point this summer as a possible location for this event. It reminds me a bit of the Margate and looks like it might be ideal. But I shall have to investigate it further.

A loved one mentioned doing this in the fall; I was thinking of june. What are your thoughts, most beloved, if this event is of interest to you? I believe an event in the fall is not possible for academics? Tell me :-)

It is almost tempting to do this next year, but I know that 2016 would be more feasible, not to mention more reasonable. I am starting this project from scratch and there will be a number of details to work out. Doing it in 2016 would give me enough time to plan it without my hair falling out, especially since I have a few writing projects on my slate as well; and next summer I would have a kind of vacation. I shall pace myself.

Because this will be a small convention, I shall start keeping a list of people who are very interested in coming; when the time comes for registration, those on the list would be informed first. As I said, I have plenty of time to put this together.

Incidentally, I have already acquired a domain for the event, and shall have fun with the website (I love doing that sort of thing). Once again, I shall be keeping it simple, neat, streamlined.

A loved one wrote to me, "you have the sort of... erm, space pirate... qualities to spearhead something like this :)" *laughs*

For now, more rest. There are things around the house that need to be fixed or maintained this summer; I shall be writing; I shall start putting Quietus together and assembling my small team. In 2015 there will be MISTI. 'Tis all good.

Your devoted
Logospilgrim, the quiet professor

I have olive bread, sharp cheddar, orange/cardamom tea, wrist braces, & 16 unscheduled hours. This draft dies today.

This weekend, I went to the Frederick Book Festival and had a fantastic time! I got to see people I rarely get to see (Diana Peterfreund, Miranda Kenneally, Blogger Jessica, Writer Laura, and my agent sister, Valerie Cole), and meet people I’ve known online but hadn’t yet had the chance to meet in person (Jen at Jenuine Cupcakes, P.J. Schnyder, Hanna at The Irish Banana, and Liza at Reading With ABC), and get to meet a few lovely new friends, too (Jennifer Armentrout, Amanda Brice, and many others). (I’m sure I’m forgetting lots of people. Sorry. I STILL ADORE YOU.)

The event itself was great. Cold, but great. (See any of the numerous photos of us huddling in spare tablecloths.) I love getting to visit with other enthusiastic readers and writers. The energy was high! (Definitely aided by the presence of cupcakes.)

You can read about the event on Cupcake Jen’s blog, and Liza’s, or check out the Frederick Book Festival hashtag on Twitter.

This post is not about the awesomeness of the weekend.

This post is about getting there, and getting home.

Imagine me, sitting in my driveway, fussing with the GPS device so I could get to Frederick.

Me: *types in F-R-E-*

GPS: FREDERICKSBURG, VA?

Me: No! Frederick in Maryland! *tries again*

GPS: FREDERICKSBURG, VA?

Me: GAH! No. Maryland! Oh, I see. It’s only searching in Virginia.

At last, I figured out how to program the GPS to take me out of the lovely state of Virginia, and into the wilds of Maryland. My mom was on the phone with me during this time. Giggling.

I knew which route I wanted to take — no interstates. There is a straight shot from my town up to Frederick, and I had printed instructions to help me get there. I’ve dealt with this GPS device before, and on every trip, it’s done at least one thing to try to get me lost. This time, I knew what to expect.

Or so I thought.

GPS: Exit right to interstate.

Me: No. *drives past exit*

GPS: $%%$&^*@! Recalculating. Turn left. Then turn left. Then exit to interstate.

Me: *ignores and continues on the One True Road To Maryland*

GPS: Recalculating. Drive one mile. Exit right to interstate.

Me: No! Just shut up! Why can’t we just stay on this road?

GPS: Exit right to interstate.

This went on some time, with my mom cackling in my ear, until finally the GPS gave up and allowed me to take the road I wanted. But then we reached the next hurdle: the hotel entrance.

This was one of those areas where you had to drive past the hotel and to the entrance, then turn into a driveway and through the parking lot. I’m not sure where my GPS wanted me to turn, but it was at least half a mile past the hotel. Fortunately, I figured it out and unplugged the GPS before it got sassy with me.

I had to go out again that first day, but this time, I got directions to the Barnes and Noble from one of the hotel desk ladies. It was a straight shot. I didn’t even need the GPS!

However, I wasn’t as confident on the way back. It was dark. And my agent sister Valerie was going to be following me. She trusted me to get her to the hotel in one piece. Cautiously, I turned on my GPS and asked it (nicely) to take me back to the hotel.

GPS: Turn right.

Me: *turns right*

GPS: Go .5 miles. Turn right.

Me: *wary* *but does it*

GPS: Turn right. Then turn right. Then turn right.

Me: Oh dear commas. I bet Valerie hates me now.

But finally, I reached a familiar road and made it back to that weird entrance into the hotel parking lot. My GPS’s next turn distance counter kept getting higher and higher, though, as if I were getting farther from my destination. Even though I was in the parking lot.

GPS: Drive five miles–

Me: NO!!!

The next day, Valerie and I drove to the fairgrounds for the book festival. I had paper directions and the GPS. I told it the address and we were off.

Part way there, the roads disappeared from the screen.

Leaving only the little car icon in a sea of white nothing.

Me: WHERE ARE THE ROADS?

Valerie: Just keep driving.

Me: THE ROADS ARE GONE.

Valerie: Drive!

Me: WE DON’T EXIST ANYMORE!

The roads eventually reappeared and we made it to the fairgrounds in one piece. No thanks to the GPS. (Later, Valerie helped me parallel park for the first time since I was sixteen.)

When it was time to leave Frederick and head back home, I fired up my GPS, knowing I was in for more trickery and interstate-pushing, but how bad could it be? I knew I had to take the interstate to get back to the One True Road to Virginia, and my paper directions told me which exits I’d want to take in order to go the way I wanted, once the GPS began its efforts to lead me astray. I said bye to Valerie and took to the streets.

Me: Isn’t this the road I should turn on?

GPS: Drive one mile.

Me: O . . . kay . . .

GPS: Turn left.

Me: *waits at endless stoplight*

GPS: Drive .4 miles, then turn left onto interstate.

Me: Didn’t I pass the interstate back there?

GPS: Don’t make me repeat myself.

Me: . . . .

GPS: Turn left onto interstate.

Me: There . . . is no left? *drives a little farther*

GPS: Recalculating. Turn left. Then turn left.

Me: *makes a U-turn*

GPS: Drive .2 miles, then turn right onto interstate

Me: Even though I’m driving the opposite way? There’s a turn?

GPS: Turn right onto interstate!

Me: That’s a parking lot. The interstate is waaay over there.

GPS: $#%&* Recalculating.

With some effort, I managed to make it back onto a street I knew, and then onto the appropriate interstate and got the exit that took me to the One True Road to Virginia. Of course, I spent the entire drive home fending off the GPS’s efforts to draw me onto the interstate, but . . . I made it. The GPS did not get me hopelessly lost, in spite of its best attempts to do just that. I knew I’d be fine if I did. I’d shoved two half-full bottles of water into my bag, as well as a granola bar and an apple, and I had almost a dozen cupcakes in the back seat. I was prepared for a long, cold winter summer of surviving in the mountains.

Originally published at Jodi Meadows. You can comment here or there.

Saturday, May 20th, 1972, was the first time I ever saw Paula. She and her parents were driving from Texas to California, and had stopped in Tucson to visit with Adeline McAvenia. Mrs. Mac and Paula's mother had worked together at Texas Women's University school of nursing.

During that visit, Mrs. Mac asked Paula if she'd like a job working as a nurses aide for her. Because of that job offer, Paula would end up living with Mrs. Mac in Tucson. I'd spend a lot of time with her over the next several months.

Tomorrow will be the 41st anniversary of that first meeting.

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