Just got an email from the editors of Daily Science Fiction letting me know that they’d like to buy my short story, “Requiem Duet, Concerto for Flute and Voodoo.” This is my first sale to these folks, but I’ve been impressed for some time by the quality of the fiction they’ve published. Yay!
As I promised yesterday, herein my three new favorite Most Fun Apps:
OMG, geekgirl rapture. It’s so shiny!
This was another Amazon Appstore freebie, but I believe the only difference between the pay and free version is that the free one has ads.
Continuing my new favorite apps list from yesterday, here’s three new Most Useful Apps:
Ever turned on Navigation to get turn-by-turn directions and realized you’d forgotten to turn on the GPS receiver? Or wanted to download something and realized wifi wasn’t enabled? Or been in the middle of explaining some Android workings to your significant other and your screen keeps timing out? You don’t have to sigh and bring up your home screen toggle (or worse, go through Settings), before returning to your app. With Quick Settings, you can change fundamental Android settings without leaving your app. Once you try Quick Settings, you’ll boggle that you ever managed without it.
Screenshots:
So the hubby finally relegated his stupidphone to its rightful place in the refuse bin and upgraded to a smartphone: a shiny, new Droid X. We are an Android family.
Been showing him the Android ropes and suggesting apps for him to try and, in the process, have discovered several new fabulous apps. So I figured it was time to update my list of best Android apps.
New Most Essential Apps:
A couple folks have asked me about an off-the-cuff remark I made at JordanCon at one of my panels. The question had to do with the gender of the protagonists I write, and I replied that I’ve written all manner of protagonists in my stories, including a balloon animal.
Nope, I wasn’t exaggerating. I have indeed written a balloon animal story, “The Life and Times of Penguin,” originally published in issue #18 of the Aussie ‘zine Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine and reprinted in Farrago’s Wainscot, Escape Pod, and the anthology Triangulation: Taking Flight. It was actually my homage to Voltaire’s Candide.
Curious? You can read it for free at Farrago’s Wainscot or listen to the Escape Pod podcast.
In a perverse display of self-fulfilling prophecy, thus far during this lovely, quiet, stress-free first week post-legislative session 2011, I have written exactly two new words. Two.
Okay, okay, that’s net, not gross, as in I was doing an editing pass on a couple chapters and so that figure includes tweaking, cutting, rewriting, and polishing. But it’s still a far cry from “productive” and makes me want to slap myself in the face and yell, “Just get off your ass and write, you slacker!” Which would probably disconcert my co-editors.
Or I could give a gun to my muse a la this utterly apropos comic from Jim C. Hines. Just what my crack-whore-trollop of a muse needs: a firearm.
In other news, the long-awaited End of an Aeon anthology with my “Black Swan, White Swan” in it is back on track, slated to come out in July. I really like this story—inspired by one of my favorite ballets, Swan Lake—and I was worried that it seemed to be caught in some sort of publishing limbo hell. I sold it to Aeon in early 2008, then the magazine closed down but planned to release the last of its inventory as this anthology, which has subsequently been plagued by computer issues and other slowdowns. (Of note, this is not, by far, the longest lead time I’ve experienced, which is why I wasn’t actively stewing or fretting about it.) So I was greatly relieved to hear from Patrick Swenson, publisher of Fairwood Press, letting me know to expect page proofs soon and with a concrete release date. He also mentioned that it will be released as both a trade paperback and an ebook (in multiple formats). Hurray!
Shiny cover:
Continue reading
I’ll be a guest at Frolicon this weekend (yep, back-to-back conventions right after session; scheduling is so not my forte) and saw that the 2011 panel schedule was now up on their website. I’m scheduled for these Think Track panels:
Hope to see folks there!
JordanCon was fabulous! It was extremely well run, with an amazingly on-the-ball and dedicated staff. It was, hands down, one of the best organized and conducted small conventions I’ve been to, and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in Robert Jordan’s work or SF/F literature in general.
Although I wish I’d been in better shape for it. I was all but dead on my feet, particularly on Friday, but also throughout the weekend in general, thanks to the rigors of last week’s session. Thankfully, Jana Oliver and David B. Coe were there to cover for me. In addition to being brilliant writers, they were both incredibly nice and forbearing, and also prepared, insightful, and articulate for our panels—all the things I wasn’t.
But now the legislative session is done, and the atmosphere in my office is totally different: quiet and peaceful and soothing. Ahhh. Going to try to catch up on all the back-burnered to-do items that have been piling up in my intray.
Unfortunately, topping that list by necessity is house repairs. The weekend storms seem to have done some damage to our roof. We had a leak on Friday night. It was only a bit of dripping—not a waterfall of destruction or anything dire like that—but it’s something that we need to take care of before it gets worse. I’m a bit anxious at how much that’s going to end up costing us. Ugh.
Made it to the final day of the 2011 legislative session. I’m stumbling-bone-tired-stupid and spastic-euphoric by turns, but I only have to make it through today. Got my bunny slippers ready and my purple editing pen in hand. Happy Sine Die.
On a related note, I have done zero prep for Jordancon, which starts tomorrow. Gah.
Haven’t been able to get much writing done this week—and nothing at all yesterday, which greatly irks me. Spent my non-legislative-editing time compiling records and figuring the numbers on my writing income for taxes. But IRS notwithstanding, it’s been a far more prolific session, writing-wise, than I would’ve dreamed.
48.1K words down on Dragon Queller, with 43.2K of those words written since session began:
48118 / 85000 words. 57% done!
Of course, I’m half-expecting my productivity to drop to nil once I have leisure and relaxation to contend with, for the cosmos does lurv its little ironies.
The director of JordanCon sent out the 2011 schedule grid. I’ll be doing:
Hope to see folks there!
And the Hungarian reprint of “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” is now out in the April issue (#253) of Galaktika: Continue reading
