Nebula Awards Weekend and Shuttle Launch…and Grand Jury Duty Conflict

By | |
2 Comments

So I’m all registered to attend Nebula Weekend*, and the SFWA has set up VIP viewing passes for the Friday, May 14 Atlantis shuttle launch which I very much want to see. Yay.

However, I’m slated to do my civic duty as a grand jurist during May-June. I just checked the Fulton County jury duty site, and I realized that the Grand Jury meets on Tuesday and Friday, not Tuesday and Thursday as I had thought. Glargh!

Don’t know what to do. Last day for registering for the SFWA VIP shuttle viewing passes is tomorrow. And I’ve already had my jury duty postponed once. (I was originally slated to serve during January-February…right smack dab in the middle of the legislative session.) Don’t know if the powers that be will be amenable to another postponement. ‘Course the first time, I did request to have it postponed until July-Aug, and they only bumped it to May-June, so there might be a case I can still make.

Glargh (again)!

* And as a reminder, the voting deadline for the Nebula Awards is today! Final ballots are due by Tuesday, March 30th 23:59 PST. If you’re an active member of SFWA, please remember to cast your ballot!

News I Can’t Tell and News I Can

By | |
2 Comments

Thankfully, yesterday was neither as long nor as grueling as I expected. Got home before 9:30. And, as an end of day pick-me-up, I received some amazing news.

Got it at work and just barely managed not to whoop out loud, but it was a close thing. Did babble it to my co-editors—after calling Matthew, of course; otherwise I would’ve gone ‘splody-boom at my desk. Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to squee publicly about until next month.

So as not to be accused of being (too much of) a tease, here’s news I can tell: PodCastle asked me to narrate “Honored Guest” by Ellen Kushner for a forthcoming podcast. I read and adored this story when it was originally published in the Coyote Road anthology, so of course I said I’d be delighted to.

Sleepless Night

By | |
8 Comments

Had a really bad night. Insomnia kicked in hard, worse than usual. My best and favorite remedy for sleeplessness has been snuggling Hobkin. He was the softest, warmest plush beastie to cuddle at night. Guess it should go without saying that I felt his absence particularly keenly as I tossed and turned. Ended up getting almost no sleep whatsoever, so now I’m exhausted and emotionally frail. Add to that the likelihood that we’re going to have a very late night under the gold dome, and we have a definite not-my-favorite-day day.

Crossover Day 2010 and Featured Special Guest of C. Dennis Moore

By | |
3 Comments

The current legislative session calendar has Crossover Day (Day 30) as this Friday. Blargh. Crossover Day is the deadline for when bills have to pass at least one chamber or be dropped, and usually goes to midnight or later for the legislature and therefore us Office of Legislative Counsel folks. Gonna be a loooong Friday night.

Next week, they’ll be in session for a few days, and then they’re recessing again for another week. At this rate, we’re going to be in session ’till May. So not happy.

In other (better) news, cdennismoore featured me as a Special Guest on his website and had some very nice things to say .

Droid Gmail Error: Engaging My Google-fu

By | |
5 Comments

This morning kept getting a force close “process com.google.process.gapps has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again” error on my Droid every time I tried to a launch the gmail app. Annoying and alarming.

Initial perusal of various Android forums suggested I do a hard wipe and reset to factory settings, the prospect of which triggered a prolonged (silent) wail of anguish. Decided not to do that and filed it into the “last ditch solution, to be exercised only in an excess of desperation and after every other solution has been attempted and failed” drawer. Kept digging and found folks suggesting I uninstall third-party apps one-by-one as one of them might be the culprit. Better than doing a factory reset, but striking me as a random, laborious, catch-all troubleshooting effort which, furthermore, made no sense since I haven’t loaded any new apps or upgraded any old apps lately. Filed that into the “to be tried if no better/more sensible alternative presents itself” and kept digging. Finally found someone suggesting that clearing the Droid’s gmail cache and gmail data might fix the problem. Now that tingged the “reasonable solution”-o-meter of my programmer sensibilities. Fingers crossed, I cleared both, rebooted, re-synced, and voila, no more scary force close error.

Whew.

Long story short, if folks either sent or are expecting an email from me this morning, it might’ve gotten lost in the gmail force close debacle. It might be wise to re-send any urgent emails or give me a nudge for reply.

Insomnia and Frolicon Panel Schedule

By | |
3 Comments

Sleep was not forthcoming last night. Been taking hydroxyzine on and off to aid in sleeping this last week. Decided that I was treading the path to unhealthy and resolved to go off it before taking uppers in the morning and downers at night became a habit. Voila, insomnia. Sigh.

In other news, the Frolicon 2010 panels and workshop schedule is now online. It’s still preliminary and subject to change, but I’m currently slated to be on:

Friday 4/2, 11AM-12:30PM: “Ask a Writer: Craft” – Whether you’re struggling with characters who won’t do what you want, a plot that doesn’t seem to want to come together, difficulties making your words flow the way you want, etc., come ask our panel of writers how they do what they do. (Cancun)

Saturday 4/3, 4:15-5:45PM: “Writing Sex Scenes” – No matter what genre you write, sometimes your plot is going to take your characters into a sex scene. How do you decide what level of explicitness works? How do you keep the language from either devolving into crudeness or coming out sounding medical? There’s a lot more work involved in making them arouse the reader than simply insert-tab-A-into-slot-B. (Frankfurt)

Hope to see folks there.

Another Review of “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest” and Hugo Pimping

By | |
2 Comments

Scott D. Danielson reviewed the Escape Pod podcast of “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest” at SFFAudio.com, giving snaps to both myself and the fabulous Larry Santoro, who narrated it:

“…each section of the story is a heightened emotional experience. The intensity of this story was spectacularly captured by Lawrence Santoro, who narrated in a dramatic manner that reminds me of Harlan Ellison. Bravo to author and narrator – a perfect match. A great story, truly worthy of a Nebula.”

And in a clumsy segue, this month has passed in something of a blur, and I just realized that the deadline for Hugo nominations is this Saturday, the 13th. For folks attending Aussiecon 4 or have supporting memberships who haven’t completed their nominations, I invite you to consider my novelette “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast.”

Originally published in issue #220 of Interzone and podcast by Escape Pod, it can also be read online for free at Apex Magazine.