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| I survived the surprise lesson plan, essay, extra hours at work, Yule Ball, essay critique, and two presentations I had to do over the past week.
I've got all my things packed, and now I'm cleaning like a madwoman. I leave campus in two hours in a carefully orchestrated transportation feat - bus, train, ferry, car - basically, virtually any form of transportation you can think of aside from airplane, motorcycle, or bicycle you can think of, will transpire in the five hours between the time I leave and the time I arrive at my house.*
Bring on Thanksgiving. A long weekend sounds wonderful right now.
*Assuming Amtrak doesn't kill anyone, break down on the tracks in Ferndale, or come obscenely late, as it has been known to do. | |
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| Hope it's a joyous and warm one for all those celebrating same. | |
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| Been thinking about Buy Nothing Day -- which if this Friday in North America, Saturday in the rest of the world -- and why I plan to consciously celebrate it again this year. I have sympathy for those who favor supporting Buy Local Day instead. I have a little less sympathy for those who simply cry out "jobs and the economy require we buy lots," but I'm not completely without sympathy there either. And I can't claim that I'm going to stop buying anything at all from Friday onwards, or even stop buying anything at all I don't need. But I still think there's value in consciously taking a day off from buying, well, things. Not if one merely puts of a buying binge until the next day -- but if one uses the day to rethink what one buys, what one needs, and what one's consumption patterns are, so that one can buy less and buy more mindfully in the days that follow. I do intend to try to do that. While businesses need to sell things, an economy based entirely on pressuring too many to buy too much that they have too little need for is already on shaky ground, IMHO. Upping the pressure to do so year after year is not going to fix this. And the mindless stuff-buying frenzy of Black Friday is disturbing, and is something that we need to take a critical on a regular basis -- along with the ways in which we support it. | |
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| It occurs to me that it's more useful to post this today than two days from now. I've condemned Black Friday before. This year, Teresa Nielsen-Hayden at Making Light does it way better than I can, focusing on Wal-Mart and the company's persistent refusal to institute measures that would decrease the frenzy and protect both customers and employees. It isn't like this takes them by surprise, people. That post documents a four-year history of injuries and property damage, hospitalizations and crowd violence that takes police to shut them down. And there are well-defined methods of reducing that risk. They do not include tossing laptops at the crowd like t-shirts during a rock concert. When your employees are making statements like "They trampled each other for 'em, [...] It was great," then something has gone horrifically wrong. Wal-Mart's corporate masters create and feed the mob mentality, because it benefits their bottom line. But the cost to the rest of us -- including their employees -- is sickening. | |
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| Here are today’s stats for the fabulous urban fantasy adventure about a neurotic vampire/thief and her wealthy blind client, now with Bonus! Cuban drag queen and military intrigue — and yes, I’m making an early day of it:
Project: Bloodshot
New Words Written: 2594 (not great, not bad)
Present Total Word Count: 83,005 words
Goal: 95,000 words by December 12
Things Accomplished in Fiction: Argued extensively with a seeing-eye ghoul.
Things Accomplished in Real Life: Day-job work; went to the University Book Store and signed their stock as well as a few mail-order books; did more last-minute Thanksgiving shopping; beat head against wall.
Reason for Stopping: The apartment is not clean and people are coming over tomorrow. I need to change the litterbox, sort out food prep arrangements, vacuum and mop the (filthy) floors, and maybe even do some laundry, we’ll see.
[Crossposted to/from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so either here or there.] | |
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| Dear Story,
Yes, your worldbuilding is pretty. I'm glad you're proud of it. But that doesn't mean you need to share every last bit of it with your readers.
It's not that I don't love you. It's just ... there's only so much room on the fridge, okay? I can't possibly hang all your pictures there.
Also, we'll talk about chapter 11 later.
Sincerely,
Me | |
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| I've been thinking on things I'm thankful for, and naturally books is high on the list. But until the History Channel's "Comanche Warriors" reminded me, I'd almost forgotten about one of my favorite books of all time, a historical called RIDE THE WIND by Lucia St. Clair Robson.  Originally published in 1982, RIDE THE WIND is now in its 24th printing. When it debuted, it made the NYT Bestsellers' List, and won a ton of awards including the Golden Spur Award. It's based on the story of Cynthia Ann Parker, who was kidnapped by Comanches in 1836. As a teen, I was fascinated by her story, by the romance of her love for the chief Nocona, and the details of Comanche life. This was Robson's first novel, and it's a testament to her librarian powers that she created such a realistic and gripping picture of life on the Plains. Of historical writing, Robson says: "A historical novelist must do more than list which generals fought where and when. She tries to re-create the society in which people lived, and she has to make it so vivid that readers can feel as though they're living there too." I couldn't agree more. RIDE THE WIND swept me away into a time and place that I'd never encountered, but that became so familiar over the course of the novel that even today I love running across references to Cynthia Ann or her son Quanah, as if they were somehow friends of mine from the distant past. For several years, I re-read RIDE THE WIND regularly, and when someone who borrowed it never returned it, I bought it again, because I couldn't bear to be without it. I love the fact that Robson very subtly uses Comanche culture as a lens through which to examine her own culture and to ask her reader what's truly important in life. If I can attribute that attention to historical detail in my own writing to any influence, it's probably hers. Though I haven't read a Robson book since TOKAIDO ROAD, I still admire her and am grateful for her inspiration. I'm glad she's still writing. And if you'd like to see more about Native American writing and history, a great conversation went on this past week over at [Bad username: thru_the_tollbooth]. | |
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| http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HeyTeenagerOfTheYear/~3/PydK4EO90DQ/interview-with-luisa-plaja.html  Luisa Plaja is the author of Split by a Kiss and Extreme Kissing . I reviewed both books here (read my Split by a Kiss review, and my Extreme Kissing review) and they're both great - hilarious and chick-litty, but also with a bit of substance to them. You can find out more about Luisa and her books on her website, and you should follow her on Twitter (she also blogs at Chicklish - a great site for for reviews, interviews and giveaways of UK teen fiction). 1. Is there anything in particular that drives you to write, and to write for teens?
That's a great question. I don't really know the answer! I love reading fiction about teenagers and I always have, and writing it feels natural. I think it's a fascinating time in life to read/write about. 2. I love the concept behind Split by a Kiss! Did the idea just pop into your head, or did you want to explore that whole Sliding Doors idea, but on a teenaged level, and the story originated from there?I definitely didn't set out to write a "Sliding Doors" story. I wanted to write about the culture shock of a British teenager moving to the States. The 'split' happened as I was writing, and thinking about the effects of a move like that. I think it can sometimes feel as if you adopt a new persona when you live in a different country and are seen differently. When I reached the scene with Jo and Jake in the cupboard, I couldn't make up my mind how Jo would react, given the change in people's attitudes to her, and how this was changing the way she saw herself. I decided to explore two different reactions, and the split was born! I love examining issues of identity and self. And this is the point where I worry that I've made the book sound heavy, when it really isn't, as you know. It's very light, and it's a romance. Though a lovely person I know recently disagreed with me on this. "It's a contemporary analysis of Jungian philosophy!" she told me. So, you know. Perhaps the book itself has a bit of a split identity. ;) 3. In Extreme Kissing, Bethany and Carlota go Extreme Travelling in London. Have you ever tried out Extreme Travel yourself? (I think the 'silent rave' bit would be especially fun!)Yes, in a way, although Bets and Lots had a far more exciting time than I did with my friends! We'd end up going round in circles on the Circle Line or standing in the middle of a traffic-filled roundabout going, "Ohhh-kay. Let's go home now." The silent rave was based on this one, which took place near the one Carlota starts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsXtmmswDCA 4. What was the road to publication like for you?Very smooth and absolutely wonderful. I know I was lucky. For years beforehand, though, I'd convinced myself that I could never be a published novelist because it was an impossible dream. Now I regularly metaphorically pinch myself. 5. What advice would you like to give your teenaged self, or yourself as a younger writer?Dear mid-teenage me: you want to be a writer but you already think that having a novel published is an impossible dream. You read "how to write" books all the time, and you spend every spare minute writing letters to people you've never met, and occasionally to authors you love. By night, you fill notebook after notebook with angsty tales of your life so far. By day, you write comedy love stories and photo story scripts, and you sell them to your fave magazines. (You say "fave". You might not grow out of that.) Then you worry that you are wasting your time and/or are a complete geek/nerd/whatever-you-kids-used-to-say-b ack-then. You think when you grow up you'll need a proper job and/or to get a life. My advice from the future is as follows: Don't worry. You'll muddle through and make a ton of mistakes of all shapes and sizes, but you'll always be OK in the end (so far), and you'll always be a writer (so far). In fact, you'll probably always be a writer whether you write or not, and throughout all those proper jobs you'll do. (And they'll be ace and you'll meet fabulous people and travel the country, and bits of the world, and you'll even meet some of those strangers you wrote letters to, who are now friends.) And the geekiness? You'll embrace it, eventually. Also, 'getting a life'? Is a totally spurious concept. Best of all, amazingly, teenage girls will write to YOU, the same way you now write to your "fave" authors. Well, not exactly the same, because you hand-write all your letters and post them and, in the future, girls like you will have personal computers with internet connections. Can you imagine? You'd never be off it! Oh wait - Future You never are. 6. Complete this sentence: My life outside of writing is...Busy and child-filled. 7. Complete this sentence: My teenage years were...Angsty and book-filled. 8. Are you working on anything at the moment? Can you reveal a little something about it, or is it super secret?
I'm putting the finishing touches on a sequel to Split by a Kiss. It's called Swapped by a Kiss and it's a body swap story, with Rachel as the main character. I had more to say about Rachel than I could fit into Split by a Kiss, and I'm very happy I've now had the chance to write her story too. Swapped by a Kiss will be out in April 2010. Thank you very much for interviewing me! -- http://luisaplaja.com | |
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| Oh, my GOD, you guys. You guys. After a totally cruddy fall…oh, my GOD.
My editor called me not half an hour ago with the news that Betrayals, the second in the Strange Angels series, is #5 on the New York Times Children’s Paperback Bestseller list for Dec. 6th. I think I screamed in her ear for five minutes straight.
I am now sitting here alternately stunned, screaming with joy, or weeping with joy. I’ve called my writing partner, Coyote Boy, my agent, my sisters, my friends. Everyone agrees I need champagne. The kids are pleasantly happy for me, though they have no idea what the heck is happening. They just know Mum’s really excited.
I have only two words: thank you.
Thank you to Linda K. for believing in me. Thank you to Miriam, my wonderful agent, for believing in me. Thank you to Devi P. and Jessica R., editors who believed in me too. Thank you to my friends, thank you to my sisters, and thank you to my children for being wonderful. Thank you to Coyote Boy for holding the line.
Last, but most important: a great big THANK YOU to you, dear Reader. Thank you for reading my stories. Thank you for showing your appreciation. Thank you for being there. Without you, I’m just shouting in the wind.
Thank you all, each and every one of you, so, so much.
I’ve got to go cry (with joy) a little more. I keep repeating “Oh my God” and “thank you” and “Happy Thanksgiving” like a broken record.
Once more, then, because it really bears saying, and I really mean it:
Thank you. I am so happy right now. Thank you all.
Posted from A Fire of Reason. You can also comment there. | |
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| http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wwdn/~3/6NegNN7bfzo/the-guild-the-guild-the-guild-the-guild-the-guild-the-motherfrakking-guild.html I, uh, had trouble coming up with a title for this post. Sorry about that. So season Three of The Guild wrapped up this week, and if the feedback I'm getting via Twitter and e-mail is any indication, we can make a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.
Felicia has a post at her blog where she talks in a spoileriffic way about her creative process and the choices she made for this season.
So the episodes. Two Guilds. Fifteen Actors. 20 Extras. What a nightmare, who thought of this storyline anyway?!?! Well, for episode 11 it is the finest frenzy we’ve ever done. I was determined to give everyone a grace note in one of these episodes, and I think everyone got wrapped up pretty well. There were, frankly, too many storylines going on this season, but out of necessity I made them work, because I couldn’t think of any other way to do the season. I think for season 4 there will be a more streamlined story on my writing part, but due to the chaotic nature of this season’s storyline I’m really happy with how it turned out.
Don't read it if you haven't watched all the way to the end, but if you have, I think it'll entertain you to the max, for sure.
Speaking of entertaining things ... here's the episode 9-12 gag reel!
Felicia points out that you can watch all of Season Three at Bing Video, which is kind of a big deal because it means that Bing is finally useful for something. Mark this day in history, kids. And Felicia, if you see this: Kick ass, dude. Once again, you owned it. Warning: Assume that there will be Guild Spoilers™ in the comments.
 
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| So, today I ended up spending the entire day preparing the guest floor for . . . well, guests. Tomorrow, my brother and his wife will be arriving, probably late, followed by my mother on Friday. (We're having the family Thanksgiving on Saturday.) This required that change the sheets on the guest bed and then move a bunch of the furniture and plants around so that my mom has something to sleep on in a somewhat private area, since the fourth floor is all one big open space with bookshelves sort of sectioning things off. So I started moving things. But moving plants usually means things fall off of the plants, such as dead leaves and blossoms. More things than you would imagine the plant could be carrying in the first place. So this required the vacuum cleaner. I'd move, rearrange, then vacuum that spot. Then move, rearrange, and vacuum another spot. Etc. Then I'd return to the first spot and see that the plants had managed to drop more material onto the floor. This prompted me to attack the plant and remove as much material as possible from the stems and branches and whatever (which put even more stuff on the floor) and then vacuum.
Which of course led to the idea that I needed to vacuum the entire floor. So after everything was moved and the plants rearranged, I vacuumed everything. But one of the plants must have oozed some kind of sap or something, because the floor near where it used to be was sticky. So I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed the floor. This appears to have made the stickiness worse. I've abandoned this sticky project for now.
But since I'd vacuumed, I felt the need to dust. So I started dusting. I'm not a duster, especially with as many bookcases as I have, so dusting didn't last long, but I did hit all of the major non-bookcase furniture.
This dusting/vacuuming idea led to general cleaning and rearranging and the putting out of all of the food I'd bought that isn't in the refrigerator in preparation for tomorrow. Because what am I doing tomorrow instead of writing? I'm going to cook whatever I possibly can make ahead of time. This may include the first ever apply pie, some pumpkin-shaped cheesecakes with Oreo cookie crumb bases, and some dips. I really think I need to make the dips because dips generally taste better if they'd had some time to sit and flavor. I'm going to make 4 dips: my famous artichoke dip, bacon-bacon dip, beau monde dip (a holiday tradition), and a spicy dip I can't remember the name of currently.
In the meantime, my partner is going to make our own Thanksgiving meal. And sometime late tomorrow, my brother and his wife will arrive and all of the festivities will begin. | |
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| http://www.deadlinedames.com/?p=2171 As some of you may know, I’m currently working on draft 2 of Alpha (and simultaneously draft 3, as Dame Rinda’s critiques come in chapter by chapter), so I’m thoroughly immersed in my own world. These are just a few of the thoughts I’ve had about the Shifter series in the past couple of days. Please forgive the rambling… 
Yesterday, to verify a small detail, I opened up one of my shiny new UK copies of Rogue to search for the necessary bit of information.
And I was stunned by how different most of the characters are, both from what I remembered, and from what they are now, in this last book in the series. I haven’t read much of Rogue since it came out a year and a half ago, and I can’t believe the difference. It’s not that I think Rogue is a bad book (I’m still proud of it, for that point in my career) or that I dislike the characters. I just couldn’t believe how much they’ve changed. How much it’s all changed.
(And at this point, I really wish someone other than Dame Rinda and I had read Shift, so you’d know what I’m talking about.)
For Faythe, I think it truly started in Pride(book 3), when she met Kaci and came face to face with Malone’s machinations for the first time. When she understood how far he was willing to go to put her where he wants her. And that the same goes for Kaci and Manx. That’s when Faythe’s fighting and rebellion gained true purpose. When she realized she could make a real difference.
And from that point on, the stories got darker. Faythe became much more fierce. The stakes got much higher and the risks much greater. She fights with everything she has now, so her losses are devastating. And as her career starts to fall in line, suddenly her personal life seems much less clear.
By the time we get to Shift, Faythe knows where she belongs in the Pride, and in the werecat community at large. She knows what risks she’s willing to take, and what lines she’s willing to cross. And she understands now that there are always choices, even if all of them are very, very bad.
She has political pressure, familial pressure, personal life pressure, and internal pressure from her own self-expectations. She’s grown up, and in many ways she’s grown hard, and there’s no going back from some of the toughest choices she’s had to make.
But Faythe’s not the only one changing. Recent events (if you’ve read Prey, you know what I mean) have changed the men closest to her, and by the end of Shift, readers (and Faythe) will understand that all of the characters are flawed. Some are victims of circumstance, others of their own poor choices, but no one has an easy path through these last two books and no one will emerge unchanged, or even unscathed.
Sometimes, in the rush of adrenaline, it’s easy to believe that the moments that define us are those experienced in the violent throes of revolution and brutal justice. (After all, Faythe certainly sees plenty of both.) But they’re not. We are defined by our moments of mercy. Of forgiveness. Of trust. By our willingness to let go of the past and face a new future with those we love, even when the path twists far beyond what we can see.
And that’s where I’m trying to take Faythe and her friends and family. But I have to say, so far it hurts to think of letting them go. They’ve been a huge part of my life for years now.
But everything has a season, right?
Related posts: - A reason to celebrate
- Because time moves slower in novels…
- New Cover!
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| Some of this is a more cohesive compilation from another post, so if some bits read familiar, that's why. "Boobie Wednesday" (or #boobiewed and the lesser used #boobiewednesday, which are the Twitter hashtags) is a theme started by two women on Twitter who wanted to do something to promote Breast Cancer Awareness. Every Wednesday, there's an increasing number of people who change their Twitter icon to something breast/cleavage-related for the day. Additionally, a number of them submit photos for the blog, in support of cause. You can find their blog and site-affiliated Twitter here: http://boobiewednesday.blogspot.com/http://twitter.com/boobiewedFYI: While my picture below is safe for work, some images/photos that go onto the blog are NSFW, as they may contain nipples. So, if you work in a strict environment, you might want to look at the site at home. I wanted to find a way to contribute (after all, who doesn't like breasts?), and decided to do a piece of artwork in support of it the week of Halloween, gratis. The idea came into play that Tuesday, and I bounced it off of one of the two women who started Boobie Wednesday. She told me to go for it. In turn, I opted to do the whole of it on Wednesday. As I'd just started playing with Manga Studio, I thought this would be a good exercise in learning the software a bit more. So, I did the initial render, up through colors under the linework, and exported it to a Photoshop format. As I'd saved it that way, I didn't bother with saving it in the default Manga Studio format, and closed out the program. Little did I know that it was not a .PSD format, which would bite me in the ass in short order. I opened up Photoshop, and looked for the .PSD file, only to not see it. So I looked for all formats, and found that it had saved as a bitmap. While a minor nuisance, it wasn't a huge deal, right? Wrong. I opened it up, and descended immediately into gratuitious use of a 4 letter word found in " FiretrUCK". What happened? The image had saved with all of the layers merged. In monochrome. Or, to put it more bluntly-- all I had to show for that first 1.5 hours of work was a black silhouette on a white background. What lesson was hammered into my head? Make sure you have a viable copy of the file saved before you close the program out. Yeah, I won't be doing that again anytime soon. I walked away from the computer (so as to not give into the urge to punch a hole in the monitor). Came back. Started over from scratch in Manga Studio again.  (Click for larger version.) ( Cut for length, detail, and bandwidth, because I'm feeling nice. And stuff. Click me, Seymoure )As a bonus, I'm posting the linework and giving permission for anyone to color said line work. Feel free to email me the colored pictures, I'd love to see what others do with it, and will post a compilation of them at a later date.  Thanks for reading. I hope this was informative. | |
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| For many, Black Friday is a day to be dreaded. A day when average fun of the mill Americans turn into demonic consumerists. After all, wasn’t it just last year that some poor soul was trampled outside a Walmart on their righteous quest for cheap electronics? A martyr, I say.
I, myself, am a diehard Black Friday shopper. I have my flak jacket ready, my butterfly knife ready to whip out and my credit card warming by the stove. We’ll be heading out at 2:00 A.M (no shit), not-so-fresh from our tryptophan comas and snarling for deals. Old Navy opens at 3:00 and promises Lego Rock Band free with purchase. From there it’s a melee. I’m planning on live twittering with photos, so if you’re not following, you’ll miss out on the horrors, the blood, the tears and the laughter.
But now, to ease your Black Friday shopping plans a bit, here are the…
BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING LISTS FOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T SUCK!!!
So there you have it. Everything you need to fill your holidays with cheer.
Happy Thanksgiving Y’all!!!!
Originally published at Mark Henry. You can comment here or there. | |
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| At World Fantasy Convention (WFC), when I came down on the Sunday morning to meet friends for breakfast, I noticed police in the lobby although I thought nothing of it. I mean, I see soldiers all the time around here, and cops, whatever; I kind of don't notice in part because Hawaii is so heavily militarized (compared to the average place in the Mainland, that is) and in part because the Honolulu police force has a pretty benign and even laidback reputation. My friends, however, said that there had been an Incident, and that a friend of theirs had actually made an attempt to intervene. There are two posts about that incident, the first coming hard on the heels of the actual event, and then second, a very interesting follow up some weeks later. Read them in order. For me, this is a textbook case of how a country with an informed citizenry and responsible institutions ought to work. It doesn't always, of course, but sometimes it does, and that's a valuable thing. | |
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| Originally published at Stephanie Campisi. You can comment here or there. From The Age:
Police push to cut assaults.
Surely that’s not the best way to go about it? | |
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| 1. Thanks to everyone who commented on my two friends-locked posts. I know I thanked you there, but I want to declare here in a public way that you all are made of awesome sauce. Tomorrow, on Thanksgiving, I am going to think about each of you and be all thankful all over again. 2. J. Kathleen Cheney has an interesting discussion going on at her blog about The Destined Mate (TDM) or The One, which is like Edward and Bella in Twilight basically: the one true love that you are meant for, and how it is used in books.
So I was wondering:
Do you believe in THE ONE?
Do you believe in it in real life?
Do you believe in it in books?
Please let me know because I am currently obsessed with this.
3.The people at my publisher, Bloomsbury, are really made amazingly kind to me, and even though I STINK at self-promotion, they are still amazingly kind. So.... They asked me to mention that there is a new sneak peek of CAPTIVATE up at the www.needpixies.com site. It is the second sneak peek. SO, PLEASE GO CHECK IT OUT AND INCREASE THE WEB TRAFFIC SO THEY CONTINUE TO LOVE ME! Please.... If you do and post a word from the first line of SNEAK PEEK #2 in the comments below you could win one of my three remaining advanced reader copies. You have until Monday. I will draw a winner at random.  | |
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