Because occasionally, people completely justify our continued survival as a species by doing things like what Chris Pesto, a junior at Syracuse University did in responding to a woman and her father who (though they aren't students there) like to walk around the campus holding signs saying "Homosexuality is a sin".

Though a slight boo to Syracuse University for having let the anti-gay protesters walk around campus several times previous without putting a stop to it.

Still, the response that Chris Pesto's protest drew makes my heart happy. And I'm in full agreement - that skirt really is an abomination. If not in God's sight, then definitely in mine.

I've decided to make a New Year's Resolution a month early. I'm really bad about reading only the books that look interesting to me, and not giving anything else a chance. That's fine for my own pleasure reading, but for school, I need to read a wide variety of books. On top of that I need to get the Lone Star books read as soon as possible, so that I can start telling kids about them.

I was also kind of wondering if anyone else would like to join in the fun? If my goal is too much maybe read these on a slower schedule or modify the goal to half of the books? These books are intended for students in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. Or if you prefer straight teen books, there is also the Tayshas (weird name, I know) list for High School students. It has a lot more books on it then either the Blue Bonnet or the Lone Star list. Interested readers could make the goal to read twenty of those books?

My goal: Read three Lone Star books each month. If I really hate the book or otherwise find it difficult to read, then I'll be skimming it. By that rate. Post here and in Goodreads about each book after I read it to keep myself on track and accountable.

I'll list the books again, but a list of the books With annotations is now available on the TLA Lonestar Website.

All the Broken Pieces, Burg

Bull Rider, Williams

The Demon King, Chima

Donut Days, Zielin

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, Kelly

Girlfriend Material, Kantor

Graceling, Cashore

The Hunt for the Seventh, Morton-Shaw

Killer Pizza, Taylor

The Maze Runner, Dashner

North of Beautiful, Headley

Pop, Korman

Prophecy of the Sisters, Zink

The Red Blazer Girls, Beil

The Roar, Clayton

The Season, MacLean

Slob, Potter

The Sweetheart of Prosper County, Alexander

When You Reach Me, Stead

I'll be starting today. We already have three of these books in the library, so that takes care of my December selections. First up: The ROAR.

In the opening Mars section of A Princess of Mars, John Carter tells us about Radium Rifles...


CRASH!! Yes, that's the sound a Sword and Planet setting makes when it shatters.

To be fair, ERB probably had no idea just how many books his Barsoom series would stretch to, was practically inventing the genre himself, and was also at the very start of his career (writing his way out of a low wage job selling pencil sharpeners). So he was in Tall Tale mode, weaving a tale of wonders from the ground up, and radium rifles must have seemed like a cool idea.

Thing is, the rifles don't break the logic of the world: Barsoom (Mars) is a dying planet with bits of hi-tech lying around from ancient times. If ERB had been writing extrapolative SF, then he could have gone on to build a society, and a mode of warfare, in which an unseen enemy can make your head explode from 200 miles away.

But, Edgar Rice Burroughs wasn't writing SF. He was weaving swashbuckling tales of daring do on a planet far far away. He should have borne that in mind when ad hoc worldbuilding. In other words, he needed a scope.

My fellow wannabe Dan Straka picks up on this when talking about building a magic system:

I have something similar in my universe. True to its Pulp roots, it's swarming with cultures, each with its own take on the occult; the Spider Wizards of Occuro rub shoulders with Theomancers of Trom on fact finding visits to the Temple of the Heavenly Alchemists. I do not need a single magic system that would reduce all the variation to mere window dressing. However, I do have a meta system to ensure that nobody finds the hack that collapses that diversity into a mono culture and - worse - reduces the sword to something you hang over the fireplace in your Hobbit Hole.

Edgar Rice Burroughs? Coming as he did from a simpler age, simply ignored the problem :)

Back from the states and trying to get myself kick started into work again:P Here's another combo sketch that natasha and I did for a real nice guy. Followers of my journal might recognize these two out for anight on the townn

"On the Town" Ink and marker, 9 x12 on bristol

It occurred to me while I was folding laundry that some of you might like to think about giving magazine subscriptions for Christmas--but only to a couple of special buddies or family members, because that IS an expensive gift sometimes. There are very few mags I subscribe to, but they might interest some of you, as they're kind of offbeat.

HOGAN'S ALLEY is all about cartooning, cartoonists, comics of the past, comic books and strips of the past, and related stuff. It's really interesting, and you won't find the material anywhere else. Check out their website, where they have web-only extras. They also have a gift shoppe (natch).

RUBBERSTAMPMADNESS might sound kind of weird, and it is. It's a lot less weird than it used to be, alas, but anyway. It is devoted to art rubber stamping, scenic stamping, and decorative stamping in a way that the craft and papercraft mags are not. I can't stand scrapbooking (sorry--but it just takes me back to second grade and paste and cutting out pictures from magazines and all that mess) or most of the stamping/scrapping craft mags out there, because, frankly, who wants that junk? (Again, sorry if you are way into paper crafts . . . but really, after elementary school the awesomeness of making pop-up cards should be fading. Maybe SOME of that stuff could be nice, but lots of it just looks like your kid made it in summer camp. And it takes a lot of time to make the stuff!) However, RSM will show you lots of interesting images and lots of cartoon stamping or scenic stamping. They also address mail art and artist trading cards. You could start with just one stamp pad or set of markers and a couple of neat little Christmas stamps, or a return-address stamp, or postoids to decorate your outgoing snailmail. . . . It's tough to describe what I am talking about. Check out their website or visit a stamping store that carries the mag to take a look at an issue.


2600 is the telephone/computer hacker quarterly. It always has interesting articles, even if I wouldn't try most of the stuff they talk about. Enough said.

[NSFW!!] Another mag--actually, a zine--that's not for everyone is FAT! SO? (link NotSafeForWork), all about people who don't apologize for their size and don't feel that it should be the first or only aspect of themselves that people notice and remember. It's sort of militant and anti-diet. Which I'm not. But it is pretty refreshing, after a month's exposure to all the media and people who say that fat people (and the definition gets more rigid every day) are bad, to see fat people who seem to be getting along perfectly reasonably, despite this huge character flaw (ha! Irony alert ON.) I really prefer not to make fat such an issue all the time, as I believe some people simply have a much harder time with their size/weight than others, even though the ones who tend towards "normalcy" don't want to believe it. Be careful who you send this one to, in other words.


LUCKY is the magazine about shopping! No, really! It is ALL advertising (IMHO, because the products featured are given to the editors free, and I imagine a lot of pay-for-play goes on, including product positioning and so forth) and very little editorial. Still, it fascinates me like a shiny thing. You can wait for the issue to appear on the grocery store racks, or you can subscribe and get it a week later. (grin) It's kind of mind-blowing how much these editors believe I will spend on one purse, one pair of shoes, one coat, etc. I mean, I think my coat is the most expensive item I wear, and it was under $200 for a wool overcoat. I don't know why I don't want to buy a $300 skirt or a $1200 dress. Maybe we're poor.

(Don't tell the dog! He thinks we live in the catbird seat.)

We still get Better Homes and Gardens, but technically that's Mama's.

I'm sure there's a Hello Kitty magazine somewhere, but even *I* wouldn't be THAT wack.
$ $ $
Mama and her friend Pinky, chatting (friend just got out of hospital and they hadn't seen one another since Mama got out of the hospital in Sept/Oct):

MAMA (observing friend's circular driveway from window): "I see you have leftover company." ("Left over" from Thanksgiving, she means.)

PINKY: "That's one way of putting it. They got here Tuesday and by now they're getting kinda rank."
$ $ $
"Whom the gods would destroy they first call promising."

P. S. Love that little symbol "Clean" on the iTunes tracks I just bought . . . Dean Martin, from "Make Love With Dean Martin." [Yes! If only we still could!] Okay, I guess I can see why their system would want to reassure people . . . sorta. *giggle* The very thought of Dino doing a non-clean track . . . boggle.

(For anyone who doesn't know, that's part of the punchline from a famous sick joke: "Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?")

Anyway, aside from the locked post below, the day was uneventful. Well, more or less. I called my process server, and we exchanged texts. he's going to mail me the affadavit of service. So at this point, I really don't care if The husband was served or not. Once I have the affadavit, I'll let the court figure it out. If he doesn't show for the date, he's in contempt.

I called Steve B about the issue in the locked post. I have had many times in the past to thank God that fate caused the paths of our lives to intersect in some of the odd ways they have, and I continue to do so.

Called Oldest Brother and Mom, to arrange for Oldest Brother taking me to the doctors tomorrow for my mammogram. So that's going to be my day tomorrow, getting my tits in a wringer.

Watched some TV tonight! The Kid got me interested in Criminal MInds. There were three episodes on tonight. The first two I had already seen with The Kid but the third (which I stumbled on accidentally) was new to me. I am quite liking it. Sje's right, the nerdy young scientist is adorable. I called her, should have told her so, but I was more concerend about the subkect of the post below. She's doing well, as is Carmina.

The cats all sat on top of me while I was watching TV. They keep me warm.

Gratitude List:

1. Union representation.

2. Steve B.

3. Cats.

4. The Kid.

5. Oldest Brother.

6. Fun TV.

• 19:57 Spellbent was star reviewed in PW! "Combines the best of Butcher and Pratt in this wildly imaginative and intensely gripping urban fantasy" #
• 19:58 Finished my story for the Dark Faith anthology and turned it in last night ... waiting for the editor's comments. #
• 19:59 My deadline for turning in Shotgun Sorceress is January 4th, which means I probably can't come out and play too long on New Year's Eve. #
• 20:01 And the cat is staring at me and howling piteously. He's staaaarving, the presence of full bowl of kibble notwithstanding. Wants wet food. #

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...ooops. Except it isn't the convention anymore, is it? But today has been a great wind-down for a convention weekend. Vnend whisked Will and I off to Gibson's Photographic Gallery in Gettysburg to have our portrait taken.

Robert J. Gibson is not your standard Dickens Faire hustle-into-open-backed-sorta-authentic-but-not-really-costumes-and-pose-with-a-silly-prop modern-photos-made-to-look-old Victorian photographer. His cameras and lenses were made in the 1860s; he makes either ambrotypes or tintypes, your choice, in his skylighted studio in an old building in downtown Gettysburg. His large collection of costumes is mostly genuine reenactor gear, with plenty of accessories to finish off one's outfit. And he's as concerned about the costume you wear and the look you get as you are yourself--maybe more.

He's done work for movies (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Gods and Generals, and Into the West, for example), and you don't have to talk to him for long before you realize this is his art and his passion. He's fascinated by early photography, and in consequence, is fascinating.

And he was excited when we said that, rather than a perfectly authentic Victorian portrait, we'd like to do a steampunk one. He had a ball recombining costumes, turning Will into a north Atlantic airship captain and me into an intrepid lady adventurer heedless of convention.



I cannot recommend Mr. Gibson's services highly enough.

We had lunch at Dobbin House Tavern down the street (hot cider with applejack, cheese soup, sweet dark bread and cream cheese, crab cakes), then visited the battlefield. The Gettysburg battlefield requires an entire day to see properly (after all, it took many, many thousands of people three days to make it famous; from that perspective, one day is hardly anything), but we wanted a look at the site of Pickett's Charge and its culmination, which was easier to do. Oh, those poor boys and men on both sides. I wouldn't wish my worst enemy a place in that action.

A quick duck into an outlet store to acquire another backpack (it really was a very, very dangerous dealers' room), and we headed back to the hotel to have dinner with our hostess and convention chairperson, Judy Gerjuoy and her husband, and Vnend, Ellen, and Ben James. Yes, another outrageously great dinner with even better company. I know where the cool fans come from, but how did this area get all this good food? It's not fair to the rest of us!

After that, though, my pumpkinhood caught up with me at last. I am bulbous and orange, and have a little green tendril sprouting from my head. So good night, all. If we don't meet next year at Darkover, believe me, you'll be missing one of the nicest conventions around.

(I really need an icon for this book. Unfortunately, I can't think of anything suitable.)

69,029 words. I will make it to 70,000 tomorrow. I kinda wanted it tonight, but the novel explained to me that this next bit needs more thinking, and I have become leery of the whole words-for-the-sake-of-words thing. (Why I will never do NaNoWriMo, short version.) Sometimes, you know, that's what you need, is just to push the damn hippopotamus another two inches up the hill, but it's too easy for me to get my perspective out of whack and get all invested in chasing the word count and let the important things kind of slide out of the story. Which is bad.

I am not, by the way, saying that measuring progress by word count is a bad thing or that people who use that as their metric are Doing It Wrong. I'm saying I found out the hard way that, FOR ME, it's a double-edged sword.

Also, today, I got my share of the money for "Boojum" being translated into Russian. I'm much more geeked about the translated-into-Russian part than the money, and would be even if the money were rather more substantial than it is. (Translated into Russian! A story I co-wrote! This is the glamor, baby. Right here. -- I get this way every time something of mine gets translated into a language I can't read, which thus far has been all of them.)

And for some reason, the sf espionage novella has woken up in my head again. This is why I never throw anything away. You never know when the wheel is going to turn round again.

Mr. President, we cannot afford this war. (Link to Daily Kos page with video and a link to a transcript.)

11:01 I'm finding out in detail everything that can possibly be wrong with $FastFoodRestaurant (from the point of view of the franchise, that is) #

13:02 @annafdd Placebo is good for you anyway :-) (But vitD is fat-soluble, check max safe dose?) #

13:04 @annafdd (oh and BTW if you occasionally eat fish, iodine shouldn't be a problem. Even living by the sea tends to be enough...) #

13:34 @annafdd Cool. Note that you also get vitD from food though :-) #

13:35 @annafdd I can relate to that feeling... :-) #

14:42 @annafdd Can you smell the sea? :-) #

14:58 Had food. Now I'm sleepy and getting bored with the list of all the things that can be "clean and in good condition" in $FastFoodRestaurant. #

14:59 @matociquala #wip I'm having trouble visualising the movement. Just FYI... #

15:18 @annafdd That's not the sea, that's fried greas
e! :-D #

15:32 [Bishop] is particularly critical of [...] Away in a Manger, asking: "How can any adult sing this without embarrassment?" [1/2] #

15:32 tinyurl.com/y9ohybt [2/2] #

15:59 @_gmh_ Probably offended to find a crotch where normal-sized people have a belly... ;-) #

19:35 @alexmc6 I think the cat flap must have been invented by some ancient cat lady, myself... :-) #

20:37 Mmmm... kimchi! #

22:30 @dduane @natural20 Glad to hear they're still good! Haven't been there in a while... #

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Imogen Heap tomorrow night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



It's going to be a crazy day. I'm working 9-1, then driving up to Philly right after that. My brother is coming along with me, and we're meeting Damian and Raven in the city. I will probably be tweeting a lot to kill time. :-)

Here's hoping I don't get lost! But at least I have plenty of time to get up there and settled. I'm hoping we can get good "seats" (it's General Admission and, I believe, standing room).

Happy Birthday (in a few hours), papersky and abennettstrong!!

Newest Tom Tomorrow cartoon.

Fashion is supposed to change, right? Aren't we in the era of instant alteration? Yet clothing fashions seem to be curiously running like watercolors, all blended together. Mostly I am all right with that, especially since I can get away with wearing scruffy stuff thirty years old and no one arrests me for smiting their eyes.

Oh, but why, WHY does this horrible fashion of young men wearing their jeans hanging down below their butts, so they are forced into a prison shuffle, persisting now close on twenty years?

Maybe it's male revenge for a couple of decades of girdles, cone bras and helmet hair.

Subterranean Press is offering 50% off pre-orders, which I can only assume includes Bone & Jewel Creatures.

Also, if you write as much as I have in the past five days, after two days spent cooking an enourmous holiday meal?

Don't expect to be any good on the climbing wall. Just saying.

UPS guy came by today to look at the walkway. Yep, it's damaged. Since exactly WHO did it is still subject to dispute, they're going away and I'm getting the walkway fixed. (Probably done by the Downhill Neighbors, actually.) UPS guy did point out some tire tracks crossing the walkway from some other contretemps previously unidentified. I have a feeling that perhaps that walkway would be better replaced entirely.

It was dreary and drab and cold and rainy all day--the horses spent at least part of the day hanging out under the overhang, glaring at the world.

Tomorrow's supposed to be better. Tomorrow I also start outpatient therapy, yee haw. Also, yee OUCH.

And I also get to call the anesthesiologists' office and find out what they're complaining about. Okay, to be fair, I already know--they want their bill to be paid. Which it would have been long since, IF they had bothered to wait until the surgeon and or hospital had submitted THEIR bill; but since they were efficient, my insurance company saw an anesthesia bill, but no bill for an operation. So they ignored it. By the time the surgery bill came in, they'd forgotten all about the stray anesthesia bill. Hence the anesthesiologist screaming for his fee. *sigh*

And here comes WhoDat, in search of serious cuddles.

The scene I wrote yesterday - is one of the ones that give me so much trouble. In it, my protagonist comes to a conclusion. In the first book, she's mostly followed directions - go here, do that. She's come up with some theories, done some research, but all in a framework that was given to her.

So I asked Theresa at edittorrent whether she had any suggestions.

Her answer was succinct.

give her meaningful action. If she's walking down the street, have her see two things simultaneously that remind her of two clues that she hadn't connected before. Let the environment act as a sort of stimulus for the internal journey.


And I went 'ah, of course,' because it's not that I haven't tried interweave action/description with the internalisation - moving the character forward while she's coming to a decision - but I'd somewhow missed the 'meaningful' part.

Externalisation. I'm not entirely surprised that it comes back to that, or that I'm finding a good use of it, but once Theresa had said it, it made tremendous sense.


At the very basic level is the need to break up the expository lump. And while you can shape exposition and make it flow, it is, in my opinion, much harder to do that to internalisation - fewer lines to guide the reader along.
Internalisation, more then description, carries the danger of floating in space and time. At least in my first drafts, they can happen almost anywhere, there's no real reason they should happen at _that time_, and everything else gets on hold while the protag works out an important question in their head.
I *really* like the idea of using the environment - not just things that happen, but things the protag observes - to guide her though the thought process. I can see where it would be cringeworthy, as bad as the dark and stormy night for a stormy relationship or the rain when the character is sad - if the relationship is too obvious, painted too strongly, it won't work.
Last but not least, I like the idea of playing with subtext and symbols and metaphors. I'm not very good at finding them. (And I can look in second draft. Not right now. Right now it's enough that I know that Venna has come to the conclusion and what sparked it; time to move on.)

So, nothing new, really, just a different way of looking at it what will make it easier for me to consciously improve scenes that I feel are too thin and with too little grounding.

My NaNo count stands at 12899 words. I have a further 258 words in hand, but as that scene isn't finished, I don't count them. I'm fine with that. I wish this book wrote faster and needed less revision, but that's the way it is. Congrats to anyone who made the goal, and equal congrats to anyone who has decided that NaNo was not for them and that their own process works better for them.

Also posted at http://green-knight.dreamwidth.org/6780.html where it has gathered comments. Reply wherever you like.

On a more positive holiday note, I ordered my Year of the Tiger eto set yesterday. For some reason, they don't have stripes. Very odd. I'm getting pretty close to having a full set, except for the unfortunate Year of the Pig where I failed to get my act together to order them until after they were sold out. )-:

It's the little things that make me happy.

Not writing much but busy.
My turn to blog http://awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com/

Nice mention in Saturday's Times http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_reviews/article6933357.ece

Still waiting confirmation on the contract. I had intended to write a short for a competition but rather failed on that one.
I am really enjoying the teaching but it eats more time than it should and it is hard to work on other stuff. This is something I need to bear in mind for the future.

Hey, Christmas is right around the corner! Do you need some cool books to buy for that booklover? Books they might not have seen or read yet? Are they waiting impatiently (like all of us) for that next Jordan/Sanderson or Martin fantasty to hit the shelves? Well give them some damn good fantasy to read while they wait! Here's a reminder about the signing, and also a list of great fantasy novels fans could use to wile away some of those cold winter evenings. Check them out! You might just find a brand new author who can knock your socks off!

The "Last Hurrah!" Signing

Waldenbooks @ The Oakdale Mall
Reynolds Rd., Binghamton, NY
December 5th, 2009
Noon-4pm
Gift-wrapping available!
Featuring:
Patricia Bray; S.C. Butler
Barbara Campbell; Laura Anne Gilman
Jackie Kessler; Joshua Palmatier
Anton Strout


And if you aren't certain what books are up for grabs, here's a list of all of our books in print and available through the store:

Patricia Bray: The Sword of Change series: Devlin's Luck, Devlin's Honor, Devlin's Justice; The Chronicles of Josan series: The First Betrayal, The Sea Change, The Final Sacrifice

S.C. Butler: The Stoneways Trilogy: Reiffen's Choice, Queen Ferris, The Magicians' Daughter

Barbara Campbell: The Trickster's Game series: Heartwood, Bloodstone, Foxfire

Laura Anne Gilman: The Retrievers series: Staying Dead, Curse the Dark, Bring It On, Burning Bridges, Free Fall, Blood From Stone; The Vineart War series: Flesh and Fire

Jackie Kessler: Hell on Earth series: Hell's Belles, The Road to Hell, Hotter Than Hell; Black and White (with Caitlin Kittredge)

Joshua Palmatier: The Throne of Amenkor Trilogy: The Skewed Throne, The Cracked Throne, The Vacant Throne

Anton Strout: The Simon Canderous series: Dead To Me, Deader Still

New toy -- I'm on jules.jones@googlewave.com