Category Archives: LJ

Dragon*Con 2007 part 2

By | |
10 Comments

Still recovering from D*C’07. fosteronfilm has a touch of the Con Crud, and I’m recovering from forgetting to take my Imuran for several days in there. (Whoops.) dude_the wants to establish a system for next year so I don’t forget again. Probably a good idea.

I took very few pictures at the con this year, basically only of folks I know when I remembered to pull out the camera. Herein the ones I got:


My DC2K writers group annual dinner with Ann Crispin. From left to right: Lisa, Nancy, Teresa, Ann, orig_ladycat, reddherring1955, Gwen, aldeygirl.


Three of us wore corsets this year: Me, Debbie, and canadiansuzanne. Maybe I can get all of us in them next year?

Continue reading →

Dragon*Con 2007 part 1

By | |
25 Comments

Dragon*Con is over, and I feel like I’ve been hit by a Mack truck while hung over, a particularly sad state of affairs because nary a drop of alcohol passed my lips for the whole convention. I also forgot to take my Imuran three times and once walked the sixteen flights of stairs up to the (17th floor) Green Room–after waiting fifteen+ minutes for the elevator–on top of the regular stress/no sleep/poor eating habits of the convention. So I ache and I’ve got a low grade fever. Blah.

I’m still processing the weekend, and have lots to catch up on work-wise, so this will be briefish.

There was much that sucked about this year’s con, most of which were things that I had no control over and could do nothing about–such as the Marriott doing renovations and knocking out half a hotel’s convention space for D*C07, the rent-a-crap printers and copiers that made my job that much harder, and the Internet situation in 219 which necessitated that my computer not be networked with any of the others, leading to beaucoup version headaches and having to transfer all DD files using USB thumb drives. But I also dropped the ball on Friday, not getting the DD hardcopy printing before I left to do my guest talk for Ann Crispin’s workshop, making it come out very late. My fault, and I can only plead brain spasm, as I forgot that I needed to get it running in the AM and only realized after I got back that Friday’s edition isn’t on the same timeframe as the rest of the issues.

There was also much that was great about the con, mostly to do with members of my staff. arkhamrefugee and dude_the did their usual awesome job, and also canadiansuzanne, reddherring1955, and Debbie were fabulous. Buckets of huzzah go to sfeley and cunningmix for putting out the DD podcast. And what possibly saved me from totally padded cell/strait jacket losing it, first-time staffer, noelleleithe‘s efficiency and skill, as well as her good humor and great attitude. I’ve had . . . problems with layout people on my staff before. So much so that I’ve sworn never to use one again. But when I heard noelleleithe‘s credentials, I knew I had to give it one more go. And gawd am I glad I did. She rawks and rawks hard. Not only could she do the layout professionally and quickly, but she’s also a sharp editor, even at 3AM.

I also particularly enjoyed doing my talk for Ann this year. I think, after several years now, I might have it down now. And I also enjoyed my Saturday reading. Both surprising as they involved me doing solo talking.

But yah, Mack truck, feeling pained and feverish, and much work to do and catch up on. So that’s installment 1 of my D*C ’07 experience.

And also, the rumors of me reducing an ex-gunnery sergeant staff person (not my staff) to tears are vastly overstated. I did no such thing, although I was insistent and undoubtedly somewhat terse with him.

I did, however, forcibly evict several people off an elevator to make room for a guy in a wheelchair (edited to add: unrelated to the above ex-gunnery sergeant rumor). I probably could’ve handled that better–with greater politeness and poise–although I have no regrets on the end result. So yes, my fuse was short, and I might’ve gotten more ranty and rude than is my norm. But I didn’t make anyone cry, much less a gunnery sergeant . . . I don’t think.

   


Writing Stuff

Published:
– The audio reprint of “The Snow Woman’s Daughter” is now up at Escape Pod. Read by the lovely and talented cunningminx.
– Anthology Heroes In Training, edited by jimhines, with my story, “Honor is a Game Mortals Play” is now out. And you can read more about the authors (including me) at Jim’s Blog.
– This month’s Writing for Young Readers column: Juggling Hamsters: Tips for the Busy Writer.

Dragon*Con OMG

By | |
6 Comments

dude_the is here, hurray! He flew in this morning. (Flappity.) fosteronfilm immediately put him to work on Film Track stuff, and I swiped some of his time to help me with Daily Dragon tasks.

Got the Pocket Program PDF this morning and posted it to the Daily Dragon website. Also had a chance to look over my complete Dragon*Con 2007 guest schedule.

Gah!

Friday:
– Noon “Marketing Short Fiction” guest lecture for Ann Crispin’s Beginner Writers workshop.
– 2:30PM “In the Beginning” (Writ) with Lawrence Barker, Aaron Allston, & Eric Griffin.
– 4:00PM “Villains and Bad Boys of YA” (YA Lit) with Davey Beauchamp, Cassandra Clare, Holly Black, & Kathleen David

Saturday:
– Noon (tentative) Volunteer Vixens calendar signing.
– 2:30PM Dragon*Reading

Sunday:
– 11:30AM “Oh, the Horror of It” (Writ) with Keith R.A. DeCandido, Bill Fogarty, Lloyd Kaufman, & Jack Ketchum.
– Noon (tentative) Volunteer Vixens calendar signing.
– 4:00PM Aberrant Dreams: The Awakening Dragon*Reading with Lawrence Barker, Chesya Burke, Jack McDevitt, Jana Oliver, & John C. Snider (I have no idea how six people are all going to give readings in a one-hour slot).
– 8:30PM “Now, that’s Funny!” (Writ) with Robert Asprin, Bruce Gehweiler, Michael N. Langford, Brad Strickland, Michelle Roper, & Berta Platas.

Monday:
– 11:30AM Dragon*Autograph signing.

There’s no way. Absolutely no way I can do all of these, run the Daily Dragon, and manage to stay out of a padded cell and straight jacket.

I already know I’m bowing out of the Monday signing. I mean, I can’t imagine anyone’s really going to queue up to get my autograph, and if they really want my scribble, they can come to my panels or, heck, find me in the Daily Dragon room. I’m also not making the second Volunteer Vixen calendar signing. It conflicts with my 11:30 panel, and, again, I’m pretty easy to find if someone really wants my siggy.

But after those, I’m going to have to do some pondering to figure out what next to drop–and I’m going to have to cancel several of these in order to have a marginally sane schedule.

*twitch*

Stress. Much, much stress.

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
– About 500 words on next month’s Writing for Young Reader’s column. The topic is “Finding Time to Write,” which I thought was a sweet little irony for this month’s column. Of course, I’m so slammed right now, I’m scrounging through couch cushions and under the bed for the time to finish the thing. Mmmf.
– Got to “the end” for the story for mroctober on Friday, but it needs polishing and first/beta readering. It ended up clocking in at 6.2K words. Probably will cut it a bit in my rewrite passes.

Published:
– Got a note from mroctober. So Fey is now out, huzzah! We’re doing a signing for it in Atlanta in October. Stay tuned for details!

Hamsters, hamsters everywhere!

By | |
3 Comments

Hamsters, hamsters everywhere!

Argh! Too. Many. Hamsters! Seems like no matter how hard or how far I fling the lil squeakers, I’m still eyeball deep.

Dragon*Con’s looming, and the number of items on my D*C things-to-do list gives me fits just to look at. Got a director’s meeting this weekend, need to see about setting up interviews for those of my reporters who’ve requested them, and I haven’t even started going over my guest talk for Ann’s beginner workshop yet.

I’m using Adobe’s InDesign this year instead of MS Publisher to lay the hard copy of the Daily Dragon out, which is great. Except that I’ve never used InDesign before and am having to learn it from scratch. dire-epiphany gave me a rundown of it a couple months back, but that was a couple months back, and I’ve totally blanked on what we went over since. But between the tutorials and help menu, I got over some major steepness in ye olde learning curve last night, and am now at the point where I can operate it–undoubtedly without all the bells and bling that InDesign is capable of–but I can cobble together the layout. Hoping that the new layout person will work out so that I won’t need to worry about it for at least a couple of the issues. But steep leaning curve aside, I’m really pleased not to be using Publisher anymore. Even my limited and halting grasp of InDesign shows me how much more powerful and versatile it is.

Public service announcement: the Volunteer Vixens are planning to do a couple calendar signings at the convention. We’ll be in front of the exhibit hall. Stay tuned for when.

   


Writing Stuff

Doug Cohen (slushmaster), the assistant editor of Realms of Fantasy, makes an impassioned call for a general subscription drive for the speculative fiction short story market. If y’all haven’t seen it, go read. Then subscribe to something.

Published:
– “Cyberevenge Inc.” is now out in the premiere issue of Murky Depths. Got my contrib. copies, and this magazine is really luscious. It’s got fantastic production values, feels more like a graphic novel than a literary ‘zine.

Check out matt-wallace‘s post for more pictures of the innards.

New Words:
– 3300 words on short story “Hollow” with new working title, “Change of Heart.”

After consulting with mroctober, my word count max. on this project increased, and so did the story’s scope. I wanted to write two, maybe three stories this month, before Dragon*Con, for various projects I’ve been invited to submit to, but it looks like I’ll only be able to finish one of them, and it’s been a tooth pull of a tale. Aside from the beaucoup research I needed to do for it (including a crash course on Creole–thankfully, I took French in college), midway in, I realized the story would have more resonance in first person rather than third, so I re-wrote it. Also it seems the publisher prefers lighter YA, so I also rewrote what I had to make it less gritty and dark. But I’m in the final stretch now. Had an epiphany on the drive home yesterday and plan to incorporate that today.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
5,301 / 6,500
(81.6%)

Hobkin and me this week. Voices for the Cure now out

By | |
6 Comments

Took the MARTA this morning with fosteronfilm. He continued on to Hartsfield-Jackson while I got off at my regular stop. The hubby is heading up to Illinois for the week to visit his mom. I was going to go with, but I sort of burned up all my vacation time to do Launch Pad. Launch Pad was absolutely (incredibly, fabulously!) awesome, but it means it’s just Hobkin and me this week. Fortunately, my ankle feels much better than it did this weekend, and I don’t think I’ll have any trouble as long as I don’t do anything stupid, like re-injure it.

I am, however, a bit trepidatious about Hobkin. Normally, the fuzzwit gets lunch at noonish, fed to him by fosteronfilm. But of course, I’m at work at noon and can’t pop by the house to feed him, working as I do in the heart of Atlanta. So I’m just going to give him extra large breakfasts before I head out in the AM. Big breakfast notwithstanding, I suspect that when noon comes around, he’s still going to be looking for his meal. And this being the first day that Hobkin will have to skip lunch, I anticipate much skunky ire and associated glaring when I get home.

   


Writing Stuff

Maybe I’ll get vasty gobs of writing done this week. Maybe.

Published:
The charity anthology palmerwriter put together to benefit the American Diabetes Association, Voices for the Cure, is now available!

In addition to my story, “An Interesting Week for Emmy,” it features work by such awesome writers as Robert J. Sawyer, Mike Resnick, Cory Doctorow, Lucy Snyder, Mur Lafferty, Davey Beauchamp, and more!

Only $9.05 for the trade paperback and $3.00 for the PDF download. Go buy, yo!


Ankle. Ow.

By | |
19 Comments

So, okay, I’ve worn high heels for decades now–stiletto, stacked, platform, whatever–I like high heels; prefer them over flats. I can dance and run (in so much as I run at all these days) comfortably in high heels, never twisted an ankle or fell off them, even wore them in the mountains in Wyoming for Launch Pad (although, granted, I took extra care navigating the mountainous terrain in and around the observatory area). The one time I did sprain an ankle was in high school during P.E. class, when I was wearing athletic shoes–which I don’t wear now, as sneakers are obviously treacherous, dangerous footwear.

But on Friday, I was at my desk at work, and my foot fell asleep–just a little, not enough for me to really take notice of it. I got up to rinse out my coffee mug and my foot came down poorly with a mild ankle twist as I was standing. Nothing major, but unpleasant. Unfortunately, it didn’t respond properly when I tried to recover, being asleep, and worse, my 3″ heel had landed on the very slight unevenness between the clear plastic floor desk coaster and the carpet. My ankle twisted much worse, I heard something crunch, felt intense, jaggedy agonizing pain, and down I went.

Ouch.

At first, I thought I was going to need to call fosteronfilm to come get me from work; wasn’t sure if I’d be able to walk. But after the pain subsided enough for me to sit up, it wasn’t that bad. And I’ve only got the one intersection to walk to get to the MARTA station; it seemed silly and unnecessary to make him drive through Friday rush hour traffic. So I hobbled home, by which time my ankle had swollen, started turning pretty colors, and hurt fit to shout about.

So this weekend I spent reclined on the chaise with my foot elevated, putting ice on my @#%! ankle every other hour. I’m pretty sure I gave away or threw out the crutches I had from high school, but I’m also pretty sure I didn’t sprain my ankle as badly as that time. The elevation/ice/sedentary regime greatly reduced the swelling, and it doesn’t hurt as long as I don’t put undue stress on the ankle or let it turn.

It’s wrapped now, for support and to dissuade swelling, as this is the first time in 72 hours that it’s been lower than my hip. The walk from the MARTA station this morning wasn’t a problem. I did have to rummage through my closet for a pair of flat-heeled shoes. I wasn’t sure I owned any, but I found a pair of rarely worn sandals that I’d forgotten about. ‘Course, the reason they’re rarely worn is because they’re quite uncomfortable. Their tops are a mesh of knotted elastic straps, and the knots bite into my skin. I can’t wear them for long before I start getting painful welts across the tops of my feet. Sigh. Fortunately, I don’t need to do much moving around at work, and I don’t think folks are going to freak out if I pad around barefoot for a day or so. But also, on a wholly trivial note, they don’t go with many of my outfits . . .

I just hope I heal faster than I did in high school. It took me over a month to completely recover from that sprain. Then again, I suspect it didn’t help that I was a lot more active then, running around on it when I shouldn’t have. Plus, it was a worse sprain.

On an up note, no one was around to see my graceless flop at work. Although elemess saw the chagrined aftermath as I sat rubbing my ankle. Yay for maintaining a very small and bitty modicum of dignity. . .

Stuff on My Skunk, or Why I Love Optical Mouses

By | |
12 Comments

Busy busy busy, erg. So here’s a couple pix (taken from my new-but-crappy camera phone) of Hobkin as a mouse pad. Stuff on My Skunk! And yes, an optical mouse will work atop a skunk . . . sorta.

I’m going straight to hell, aren’t I?

   


Writing Stuff

Published:
– My August Writing for Young Readers column is now up: “An Interview with Tansy Rayner Roberts of Shiny.”

New Words:
– 300 words on short story WiP, “Hollow.”

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
1,980 / 4,000
(49.5%)

Adventures in Psychiatry

By | |
13 Comments

Announcement: We’ve done away with our land line. In lieu of it, we got another cell phone so now have “his” and “her” phone numbers. For folks wishing to call me, use our “cell phone” number. For folks wishing to call fosteronfilm, use our old land line number. Please do not text message us as we’d rather get an email or voice call (and don’t want to pay the additional fee).

Saw my (a new one, actually) pdoc and got my Adderall prescription upped from 20mg to 25mg. At first the doctor was puzzled as to why I was concerned about tolerance symptoms and striving to take weekly Adderall holidays, and then I realized she thought I took it to treat ADD. But I don’t have ADD; I take Adderall to counter Lupus/MCTD-related fatigue.

Seems the colossally incompetent nurse practitioner I saw last year, who bullied and lied to me to get me to take Celexa, hadn’t bothered to determine the reason the doctor had prescribed Adderall for me originally, and had simply entered in the usual diagnosis for said script. And it’s lingered in the computers all this time . This is the same woman who told me–after a single, Likert scale questionnaire upon which I indicated that I was stressed (being unemployed at the time) and sleeping erratically–that I’d end up in a hospital if I didn’t get back on antidepressants.

I still get irked when I think of the hubris and presumption of that woman! I mean 1. She wasn’t a doctor; 2. That was the first time she’d ever seen me, and she hadn’t even exchanged more than a couple sentences with me before proclaiming me on the verge of institutionalization; 3. She never asked why I was prescribed any of the psychotropics I was on or had been taking, when a single question would have informed her that I’ve never been diagnosed with or suffered from severe depression*; and 4. Telling a patient that they’ll “end up in the hospital” after less than five minutes of in-person interaction is egregiously irresponsible unto malpractice.

And now I discover that she entered in an incorrect diagnosis, too. That woman’s a menace. I hope someone gets her out of patient care and puts her someplace safe, like dish washing or ditch digging or something, anything which doesn’t involve anyone’s health, welfare, and/or wellbeing.

But, anyway, we got me straightened out in the computer. Finally. Haven’t really noticed much change between 20mg and 25mg. I’m still relying on caffeine to boost me up to productive energy levels.

*I have suffered from borderline mild depression–diagnosed by an actual doctor who talked to me and discussed my emotional state with me before jumping on the “give her antidepressants” bandwagon–but there’s a huge difference between feeling unmotivated and irascible (mild depression) and needing to be hospitalized (severe depression with psychotic features). Glargh.

   


Writing Stuff

Much and many things to accomplish in the next few weeks. terracinque, fosteronfilm, and I are helping dire_epiphany out by editing the guest bios for the Dragon*Con program book. Deadline: Monday. I need to write/complete two stories by month’s end, preferably three although I’ve got more of a deadline on that one. And then there’s Dragon*Con. Eep.

Received:
– Hold request from new podcast ‘zine, PodCastle (sister to Escape Pod and Pseudopod).
– Note from Jetse de Vries that the story he held from Interzone‘s May electronic submission period for a second read made the cut and is being sent on to the editorial horde for discussion and debate. Crossed fingers galore!

New Words:
– 1700 words on the short story I’m writing for mroctober‘s anthology project. Working title: “Hollow.”

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
1,687 / 4,000
(42.2%)

Post Launch Pad

By | |
Leave a comment

Recovering from Astronomy Camp withdrawal. ktempest designed a spiffy t-shirt to commemorate the event at zazzle.com. The front is the Pelican Nebula image created at WIRO (RGBed by Jeremy Tolbert–who I also got to meet in Wyoming–and made beautiful by Jerry Oltion), and the back lists instructors and participants under the fitting banner of Space Dementia:


Can’t wait for mine to arrive!

Stephen Granade (sargent) wrote an amusing article, “Speculative Fiction Authors Considered As High School Students,” of which I’m verily tickled to have made an appearance among the poor, starving short fiction writers at their table (along with Ted Chiang, Yoon Ha Lee, Nisi Shawl, and ktempest–hmmm, pointed social commentary ?).

Also saw that joe_the_king has posted the Eugie-as-spacegirl pix he took during my Volunteer Vixens shoot to his Flickr account. I really like the one labeled “Space Eugie (2)” (note the new LJ icon). Preeetty. Also, folks can now pre-order the calendar from the VV website.

   


Writing Stuff

Mostly caught up on the amassed pile of schtuff from last week. Now to get back to pounding out words on the page screen! Completed the outline for the story I’m writing for mroctober and did some final (I hope) research. Hoping to get some major wordage on the page for it this week. Then back to the story for the Datlow/Windling anthology.

Received:
– Note from the editor of IGMS that they’ve raised their pay rates and are retroactively bumping the pay of any authors who would have made more under the new scale. “Beauty’s Folly” is one of those, and Edmund said I should expect a check shortly. Is that the coolest thing evah, or what?
– Payment from Absolute Write for my “When the guidelines say ‘7 to 12′” article.
– Payment from Cricket for “The Snow Woman’s Daughter.”
– 57-day personal “well written but . . . ” from Ann VanderMeer of Weird Tales with invite to submit again.
– 291-day personal not-right-for-us from Debby Vetter of Cicada and also confirmation that they got my latest Cricket submission (after query).
– 96-day release back into the wild from ASIM after holding it for their final round.

Urg. Jonsing for a sale . . .

Launch Pad: Finis. WAH!

By | |
1 Comment

Astronomy camp is over and I want to go baaaaack!!

We wrapped up on Saturday with a discussion on extra solar planets, and Vonda gave all of us a yarn marine critter she’d crocheted as mementos.

Here’s mine perched on the astronomy textbook we received, waiting to be packed for the journey south:

It’s black with silver speckles (although they look purple in this picture; I think a reflection from the textbook) which makes me think of the Wyoming sky at night as I saw it on Friday. I lubs it. *sniffle* I’m in the process of finding the perfect nesting place for it in our library.

Then we went over to Mike’s house to drown our post-astronomy-workshop blues in drunken revelry* along with several of Mike’s students and university colleagues.

Riotous games of Thing were played–with Vy doing an awesome job as Thing Wrangler–as well as several hands of Once Upon A Time. Thing, for folks unfamiliar with it, is a game somewhat like Mafia, except with fewer players, and when folks are Thingafied, they don’t leave play. I haven’t actually played Mafia, so there may be other subtle differences in the rules. (ktempest and Alaya wanted to play Mafia, but we didn’t have enough players.)

samhenderson is a prodigious Thing force to be reckoned with, as she managed to convince folks for several rounds that she could not be Thing because it was simply Too Obvious. Brilliant! If I were a parasitic alien entity intent upon taking over the world, I would so totally invade her first. And, as a public service announcement for anyone who might play Thing with Tempest in the future: even if she’s not Thinged, she’s on the Thing’s side!! Run away!

My flight home on Sunday was uneventful and on time, and Hobkin was pleased to see me. After thoroughly sniffing my face, he attached himself to my hip all night while I babbled nonstop to fosteronfilm about my adventures at Launch Pad. I highly, highly recommend it for any writer even remotely interested in space and science. Go apply for next year, yo!

* Actually, while there were quite a few bottles of booze to partake of, overall, the inebriation wasn’t at the level of, say, a SF convention–that I saw at least. I actually didn’t drink anything until nearly the end of the night when Mike produced a bottle of “Chinese liquor” and foisted it upon folks. From a single sniff of it, I knew that it was potent enough to knock me flat (I believe it was something like sake, but on steroids), possibly potent enough to ignite if you coughed hard enough, so I scampered away and filled a shot glass with coffee liquor as a defensive measure.

   


Writing Stuff

Agh! So much work to catch up on! Ack!! If you’re waiting on a note from me, I’m plowing through my “to do” list as fast as I can. I had problems sending emails while in Wyoming (the university had a common email port blocked as a spam deterrent and the workaround wasn’t ideal) so my correspondences were limited.

Received:
– Payment for “The Snow Woman’s Daughter” which is slated for podcasting in either Escape Pod or the new fantasy spin-off podcast, Podcastle.
– Issue #6 of Fantasy Magazine with my interview with Andrea Kail in it.