Month: August 2015

Things are going much, much more smoothly than I thought they would with the novella revision. I finished my preliminary notes and more superficial revisions last night. I have two brand new scenes on tap to write, and then after a smoothing and a proof, I pronounce it executed to my satisfaction.

Which is not to say it will find a home. However, the issues that have been nagging at me regarding it will be solved.

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I thought that I would go on with the open call for Oni Press, and I still intend to do that, BUT I have a Paradise Icon deadline approaching, so I need to get my materials ready for that. Ergo, that first, and then Oni Press.

I am reluctant to start a new novel. On the other hand, getting out there and just playing in the mud with absolute freedom is kind of appealing. So, here goes.

Tomorrow: Your weekly fitness update.

The time machine travels all the way back to July 4th weekend, to Convergence, which I did the weekend after 4th Street. I’ve been attending Convergence often, more often than 4th Street, and I love the convention. This year, actually, Convergence had more writer programming than Wiscon (how weird is that?), so I got a lot of bang for my writer buck. AND more of my writing life happened at Convergence than it usually does. Usually this is the con where I let my geek flag fly, but there were writer opportunities. And so it goes.

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First of all, Michael Underwood and I had lunch. Michael had posted on Codex that the manuscript acquisitions editor for Angry Robot was looking for completed manuscripts. So, largely thanks to Michael, I managed to get a complete manuscript to that nice man, and Michael and I had a fantastic chat about writing. If you have a chance to hang out with Michael, do. He’s a writer, but he’s also a salesman, and he knows the industry inside out. Also, Michael knows comics, so if you’re me, that’s a bonus. Anyway, thanks, Michael, for the cool lunch and introducing me to writers and Phil.

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Julia Rios, editor of Strange Horizons and good friend from Viable Paradise, also came to the convention. So, we had breakfast and it was again a good time. I love seeing her and hearing her intelligent opinions on everything, and we caught up on loads of stuff. Another shot of cool kept me moving on.

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I did manage to see Caroline Stevermer for two weekends in a row. That was awesome. Mind, I had to cancel our dinner for an emergency room run. Yes, that pesky reflux pretending to be a heart attack again. Still not a heart attack. So, Carolyn and I toodled over to Good Harvest for breakfast on Sunday. I’d never been, even though I’m a frequent visitor to Minneapolis. If you’re looking for tasty, healthy food, this’d be a terrific venue for you. I hadn’t realized it until this moment, but yes, I guess I have been going through Caroline Stevermer withdrawal. 🙂

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My usual Convergence experience is pretty much due to my good friends. Aric, Kim, Dan, Lisa, and of course my spectacular husband essentially let me good off and be myself. Yay! More of my writer life spilled into the convention, but we still had time to have fun and be goofy.

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And some surprise writers were there. For the first time in a long time I saw Rachel and Michael Swirsky. Why? Because Lynn and Michael Thomas were having a vow renewal ceremony. What kind of a geek do you have to be to do something like that in costume? What do you mean you have pictures of Bryon and me in 1987, getting married in our Starfire and Nightwing suits in Kansas City? Nevermind, then. Nothing to see here. Mary Robinette Kowal was also around, so there was a quick hello there.

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Convergence does have one strike against it, and that’s it’s TERRIBLE hotel situation. I know 8 people who signed up for the convention who entered the hotel lottery for a room in one of the main hotels, and one of us got a room. As The Hunger Games teaches us, this can happen, but you know, I can’t help but think that the early bird outta catch the worm here. Comic Con is a nightmare with its early calling, BUT what if you had a chance to book the hotel as you signed up? It would incentivize early registration. Bah. No one cares what I think. I wish they cared…

At any rate, I recommend Convergence, although I recommend having a back up housing plan. I mean, we always have Aric and Kim. But this is a fun, if a croded experience.

I have been doing some reading, although I have been doing more writing. Still, here are a few offerings from the literary world that really rocked my boat since I last wrote about books that literally rocked my boat. Here we go!

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I’ve already talked about how delighted I was with The Shores of Spain. If you haven’t read any of J. Kathleen Cheney’s Golden City books, you should do that. She combines romance, history, and fantasy masterfully.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell: Young college fan fiction writing twin goes to Freshman year of college in Lincoln, Ne. Her twin sister decides they need to be independent, so Cather finds the year discovering herself while gaining a pretty cool boyfriend, trying to finish her fan fiction opus before the final book of the series comes out, and continuing to grapple with her dad’s bipolar condition and her sister’s embracing of college’s party atmosphere. It’s the best kind of coming of age, a true and honest portrayal of a young girl, with bits of fiction thrown in, and the realistic ups and downs of young people at that time. This will easily make my best list for the year.

Immortal Muse by Stephen Leigh. Usually writing as S.L. Farrell, Leigh changes direction as he writes about a centuries-old battle between Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel. Lots of delicious historical research, solid extrapolations, and interesting dilemmas make this book keep you thumbing through its many pages.

Wool by Hugh Howey. A book I skeptically approached because of the hype, and it’s not my kind of read. But yes, a good book is a good book is a good book. Lots of multi-faceted characterizations, interesting social problems, and a new flavor of dystopia, if you need more of that kind of thing.

A Thousand Perfect Things by Kay Kenyon. Probably one of those books that should have received more attention than it did, it deals in an interesting and frank way with the colonization of India by England in an alternate reality.

Other books that I read farther back, but you should check out: Half-Resurrection Blues by Daniel Jose Older; The Comorant by Chuck Wendig; Ironskin and Copperhead by Tina Connolly; and Master Keaton by Naoki Urasawa.

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Finally, while it may not be cool to technically recommend a boot WHILE you’re reading it, right now I’m reading Time Reiss’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Black Count about Alex Dumas–father of the Musketeer guy. Awesome, awesome book. Just flat out awesome. I’m about a third of the way through. A must for us Dumas fans.

As long time readers of this journal know, I have vacillated on whether I would join SFWA or not when the time finally came for me to join SFWA. On Monday, I took $80 and spent it on my Associate Membership.

BTW, have you bought YOUR copy of The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk yet? Have you read Mountains of Green? If enough of you haven’t, I might be living a lie, so you might save me from myself and get out there and buy that book. Constable and Robinson thank you, and I thank you.

Okay, so SFWA. I belong to a union at work, the NEA, our state version the ISEA, and our local Kirkwood Faculty Association. As a matter of fact, I am this year’s President Elect, which means next year I’ll be President. Again. I did this in 2002-2003 in the salad days of my youth. So, I know that SFWA is NOT a union, but it is the closest thing that authors have to a union. It’s more like a solidarity organization for writers with a bit of clout in the strength of the membership.

It’s also seen a fair amount of news-covered controversy in the last few years, including that of the opinions of the few being represented as the opinions of the many (as Spock might put it). SFWAis growing and changing and expanding its ranks, and there are inevitable cultural changes and growing pains. Still, some of these stretch marks were unsightly, and I have enough work-related angst to know I didn’t want that in my life, so I was certain I would welcome SFWA into my life.

Reasons I’ve heard to do it and not do it.

Continue reading “SFWA, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”

Yes, cruise ships are like giant malls in the ocean. And a Disney cruise ship is like Downtown Disney in the ocean. On a Disney cruise, you can ride a water slide around the deck of a ship, even going out over the ocean. There’s a few stores, and they drive you to a few more. There are three nice restaurants, two elegant restaurants, fast food establishments, and room service. You can OD on Disney movies, even though you can’t seem The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes or That Darned Cat!. You know, maybe you don’t want to.

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Bryon and I went on our first Disney cruise for our anniversary 3 years ago. Our original plan was to go to Paris, but that didn’t work out. We could afford like 3 days, and it was a challenge to get everything to line up in a row. Our travel agent asked, “Cruise?” We were the kind of people who cram in every freaking attraction we can on our usual vacation, so we thought we’d be bored. Then we discovered on the ship that we liked relaxing. Maybe it was our middle age talking, or just the fact that we’d never been in a deck chair before, but we were sold.

This time, for my fiftieth birthday, I didn’t hesitate. I was the one who bought up a cruise.

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It’s not the tropics I love. Honestly, it’s the ship. I love being on a floating hotel. There’s a movie theater, three stage shows, a luxurious room, and cool places to just sit and be. This time around we bought all cruise passes to the rain forest room, rather than use spa treatments, so you could sit on a heated couch or in a private hot tub whenever you wanted. Very worth it.

In addition to these sorts of luxury hotel features, there’s an awesome family track. While we aren’t kids and can’t play at some of the cooler pursuits (come on! Why wasn’t there an Avengers academy when I was 12???), we could participate in some of the family oriented programming, like learning to fold towels like our housekeeping staff, and drawing Disney characters. Yes, I can make a mean towel monkey now. That’s a skill I’ll probably use in every day life. 🙂

I would really recommend this cruise for kids, but it’s awesome for adults alone too. There’s booze tasting. Sports. Cooking. Tips on buying jewelry in the Bahamas. Endless trivia. Dancing. Shuffleboard! Next time my goal is to play shuffleboard.

And here’s the thing. I don’t know if I will ever take a trip with another cruise line. Yes, I’ve heard good things about other cruise lines. But, like Disney World spoiled me for Universal, in spite of the allure of Harry Potter, the other boats look kind of dingy in comparison. So, there’s that.

At any rate, I’d love to hear about your cruise experiences.

Next up: SFWA. Or how on Monday, I stopped being a puppet, and became a real writer? Or maybe how I stopped being a real writer and became a puppet? We’ll see.

Work begins again. We are getting to the weeks where I prep for the new semester as both a teacher and an admin, but having just completed catching up on phone messages and emails, I figured I would take a break to write to you all. Whoops. Phone. BRB.

That was the husband calling about which Monster High lunch box he should buy for me. Which makes sense, because since Domo died the death, I have been using a Weight Watchers lunch bag, and that’s a decidedly too adult, not so fun thing.

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I’m looking over my list of things that I have to write about, and it looks like while some of that material is dated, it might still be interesting to you nevertheless, and that in theory I shouldn’t be running out of material for a while. SO, maybe what I’ll do here is just start in with the most recent first, and go backwards.

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After my Caribbean cruise (yes, it was excellent, thank you, and since I am regressing in time, you can’t know about it yet), I washed my clothes, packed up my gear, and headed out to Writer’s Digest in New York, where I was the house guest of Miranda Suri, awesome author, and her husband Sid, awesome author consort. George Galuschak completed the hosting triumvirate. Chia Evers ran into town to goof off with us on Thursday, and Chris Cornell made our fourth musketeer for the conference. It was a veritable Who’s Who of VP XIII. As you see.

We walked to oblivion. We were soaked and dried and soaked again. We walked the High Line and visited China Town and ate at The Spotted Pig, and visited shops and talked. Yeah, it was good. It goes without saying that we talked about writing and cool things.

I don’t know what to tell you about New York. Part of me likes that culture is around every corner and that you can find just about anything. Part of me dislikes mountains of garbage, crowds of people, and ubiquitous rats (okay, two, but for me that’s ubiquitous). The subway is an experience unto itself. At no point did I feel unsafe, but I felt pretty much like I needed to be hosed down with antiseptic at the end of the days there. I was amazingly impressed by the bits of New Jersey George took me to. Hoboken is pretty swanky, and I can add a cool new awkwardly named city to my list, right up there with Kalamazoo.

Now, what about Writers Digest?

Continue reading “…and we’re back. With Writer’s Digest.”