Category Archives: LJ

Mortal Clay: Progress. Poky is Me.

By | |
1 Comment

New Words: 150 on “Mortal Clay.” Not sure if I’m happy with that as the new title, so I’m calling it a “working title” for now.

Spent most of yesterday researching Qin Dynasty ceramics (terracotta) technology and techniques and pottery/ceramics in general. Found I needed to replace all the metallurgy and metalworking facts and figures I’d acquired for this story with clayware details when I excised the steampunk element. And the Pygmalion influence is definitely getting more pronounced.

Hoping to get it to zero draft today. Can’t believe it’s taken me a month to (not yet) write a 6K story. Productivity fail!

I ought to have been able to crank this out in two weeks or less. *grumble* Feeling the suckitude.

Tech Toys!

By | |
2 Comments

Got a flier in the mail for a free 2GB USB thumb drive from Micro Center. Thumb drives are always useful, so we headed out to get it. While there, we got roped in by the sale prices and ended up buying a shiny, new Sony VAIO (VGC-LT35e) desktop to replace the hubby’s old system:

Going to move the old VAIO tower to my library office as my secondary writing machine. (We’re pretty stalwart fans of VAIO computers; my laptop’s also a VAIO.)

Also picked up a 320GB passport hard drive ’cause my laptop is nearly out of space.

Doing our part to revive the economy.

Insomnia; Megstout.com; The Fleas They Carried Anthology; Misc. WiP Progress

By | |
Leave a comment

Insomnia hit last night. Hates it we do. But in my random surfing while waiting for the sleepies to alight (which they didn’t), I discovered that Microsoft has finally issued a download patch that allows users of their pre-2007 office suite applications (e.g., Word) to open and edit the new formats (e.g., .docx). I’m not a fan of Microsoft, but by necessity I use their products, and the number of times I’ve had to send a file back to folks with a “please can you downgrade the version so I can open it?” request was reeeallly aggravating me.

In other, totally non sequiturious news, Meg Stout commissioned me to overhaul her website, and the shiny, new megstout.com is now live. Hurray!

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
• 1.2K words on “Mortal Clay, Metal Heart.” And I’m officially at the maximum word length with one scene and two bridges still to go. Why does everything I write these days want to be a novelette?? Gah!

Writenowcutlater writenowcutlater…ohhhmm…

Published:
• “Running on Two Legs” (reprint) is now out in the anthology The Fleas They Carried: Animal Aid Anthology, the charity anthology edited by J.K.Richárd (neutronjockey) to benefit animal shelters and rescue groups that have been hit hardest by environmental disasters:

neutronjockey will be matching (out of his own pocket) dollar-for-dollar funds to go to the ongoing efforts involved with the 600 dogs that were rescued from several puppy mills earlier this year.

Other contributors to the anthology include Jetse de Vries, Jennifer Brozek, Michael Merriam, Michael Stone, Diane Payne, and Michael Jasper.

neutronjockey is also going to produce “Running on Two Legs” as an audio release, which absolutely delights me.

Weekend update: WiP progress

By | |
10 Comments

Hmm. My Facebook to LiveJournal interface appears to be on the fritz. That’s annoying. Wonder if it has to do with the recent Firefox addon upgrades I deployed last week. Well, this gives me an opportunity to separate out my blog feed from my FB status updates/Twitter tweets on my website, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Goes with the miscellaneous website updates I’ve accomplished recently like putting together an alphabetized index of my published fiction, a FAQ, and other various tweakage.

Anyhoo, catching up on my end-of-week writing tally: 600 and 700 new words on the page and 500 culled in a fit of editing on “Mortal Clay, Metal Heart.”

But alas, nada over the weekend, which was generally pretty blah, overall. Took a holiday from my upper meds—keeps my tolerance from ramping up—with the result that I spent most of it crashed out on the couch in a limbo of napping and struggling (failing) not to nap. Managed to drag myself out of the house once for an eye exam—need new glasses and contacts—and that’s it.

The gods of productivity demand a blood sacrifice (unrelated to the eye exam, ’cause otherwise, ewww…).

OutlantaCon report part 3 sent

By | |
5 Comments

Just sent in the 3rd/final segment of my OutlantaCon writeup for Fantasy Magazine. I had a great time!

Less in recovery mode this Monday AM than usual from conventions. Probably due to the wise decision to not drink or otherwise carouse at this one. Because of how close OutlantaCon’s host hotel was to our house, I even got a reasonable amount of sleep. Hope they continue to have it in northern Atlanta hotels (although not this particular one, as after the rains on Saturday, the main programming room acquired a new “amenity”: running water…sans plumbing pipes).

They’ve already invited me back to reprise my guesthood, which makes it the earliest advance notice/invite I’ve ever received from a convention. Hee! Of course I said “yes!”, so I will absolutely be back next year.