In the face of darkness, high stakes, and horrible odds, you can save yourself and the world
Starting with…a couple of gems this morning from Ferrett Steinmetz
In Case You Want to See the Upside of Hard Work
Advice to Newly Minted Clarionites
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Jim Hines muses on Agents as Publishers
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Chuck Wendig’s explains that as far as careers go, most writers are doing it wrong.
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Shrinking Violet Promotions talks about the art of revision.
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Enjoy!
…And the writer’s group posts its first set of email goals. Which already has the affect of making me feel more accountable. Sort of like.
Look! Writer One is going to have her novel finished before she travels this weekend. And Writer Two is recording a story she’s reading for PodCastle. Writer Three is making Con arrangements. Writer Four is epublishing his book…and on and on.
I don’t want to be the lame writer who didn’t meet her goal of getting part of her novel out to the reading group this coming Friday, or not starting on the next part of said novel.
This might actually work.
Write on my wonderful friends. You are most excellent.
One anime convention later, and the effects of my vacation are undone. 🙂
I spent the weekend helping my friends put on the last Natsukashii Seminar at AnimeIowa. It’s very much time for our time there to sunset. Five years ago when I conceived of offering panels on old school anime and its culture, it seemed like a way to keep anime fans aware of anime roots. Two years in I realized that while our group of friends were having fun, anime fans really weren’t interested in roots. Three years later, helping another friend run the Seminar, I believe that what we have to offer is considered a bit arcane, and what anime offers us is stuff we’re not interested in. Bryon and I decided this would be our last year, regardless of what the rest of our friends decided, but well in advance of this convention, they too decided the Seminar was finished.
It was a working weekend. Fun was had, it’s not that, but when you are doing something that you no longer really enjoy, it is a drain, not rejuvenating. Top that off with not being in the right environment to write this weekend, and I find myself feeling like I’ve been working this weekend. Not a rewarding, virtuous kind of work. The kind of work that keeps me from doing what I wanted to do, and makes me feel like I’m behind on things. Feh. It is a problem of mine, this doing things for other people.
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You do remember my expertise hours? Currently, I sit at 354 for the year. I should be at 360 this week, but I can assure you, I will catch up. Maybe not for the next three weeks, because I’m working 8-4 for the college, and it’s challenging right now to find 12.
It’s a bit like writing through mud at the moment. Here’s a really interesting post from someone who’s sort of in the same place, for sort of the same reasons. I’ll get there. I have a group of readers who are going to be helpful in getting me interested in getting the work out there, and some writer friends who are going to help me with goal setting, but on this very tired Monday after a convention that drained, my optimism lags just a tad.
Anyway, hang in there. The hot summer is almost behind us. July, a busy mistress, is over, and I look forward to a return to routine and some writing time during the week in about 3 weeks. Meanwhile, I keep the faith. At the bookstore yesterday, looking through books, I discovered that there still wasn’t anyone doing what I’m doing. Lots of other stuff. Some of it unique, but yes, I have something to offer that’s different. And while that doesn’t guarantee it will ever see the light of day, I take comfort in being a bit different in voice.
Work, it is calling.
Catherine
I’ve been shopping again. Today I want to hilight ModCloth. My friend Julie Rose linked me up to this site. If you shop there, you want to look in the long dress section for their beautiful looks.
Today, I purchased this:
Can you feel the 60s?
I also bought another dress from eShakti. I’m pretty happy with my first two purchases from there, although they did take forever with the order last time, so we’ll see how they do this time.
I’ll be writing about rollers (yes, rollers!) next.
Catherine
I’ve seen Captain America twice now. It’s being touted as the best Marvel superhero film. (Buzz says that Chris Nolan’s Dark Knight is best. Get outta town!) I’d disagree. I still think that Spiderman 2 fills that slot, and I would say that I liked Thor better (folklorist. Yeah. It’ll happen.)
All that is not to say that I didn’t like Captain America. As a matter of fact, Chris Evans gets my award for best actor in a superhero movie. This movie is not about a great cast. This movie is about a great performance.
There are other really good performances in this movie. Tommy Lee Jones plays himself to solid affect. Hugo Weaving is a tad over the top, but it’s necessary to be over the top to emote through a red skull mask. Stanley Tucci shines in his brief role as Cap’s fatherly creator. And Hayley Atwell’s cool British agent is a performance that rivals Evans’.
But Chris Evans owns this film. As he should.
New article in Shimmer worth your time.
I guess times have gone from bad to worse for LiveJournal? All I get is the turning circle of death when I try to log in.
I have to admit, I like Google +. It’s sort of the best of Twitter and LiveJournal combined. Easy, friendly, capable of screening, right where my gmail is. You guys are gonna like this too when it’s out of the testing stage.
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Spent last night working on an AnimeIowa presentation with Bryon. It’s about where anime represents Japanese culture accurately, and where it doesn’t. We spent the night watching clips and making slides. I hope to finish up our AI packing and prep tonight, as well as get some writing time in. It’s supposed to be easier in the summer, right? *eyeroll*
Today, I must complete syllabi, so I leave you with this brief check in. I hope to get to that Captain America review tomorrow.
Cath
A couple of weeks back, I went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. My history with the Potter franchise has been long. I’ve been a fan fiction writer, a moderator on a site, a member of a board that helped put on Potter conventions, and an academic researcher about Potter. I used to have, before we moved English to our new building, the Potterized office. Yup, I had the Potter bug, and I had it bad.
I became involved with Potterdom about the time the first movie came out. I was thick in the throes of my PhD, but I was certain I wasn’t going to see that movie without reading the books first. Bryon and I read them together, and by the time movie one was released, we had read the first three books. I was hooded in December, 2001, and I decided I wanted to know about Potter. I also had serious doubts about my ability to still write, so I thought fan fiction might be a way to see if I still could. And I stuck around for a while until I decided I needed to be writing my own stuff.
I also have to admit to dwindling interest. I felt pretty okay with the books up through book 4. Then characters I sort of assumed things about were revealed to be jerks, the movies were hamfisted Hermione Granger fantasies, and well, meh.
But, here’s the thing. A couple of the movies have had what Rowling seemed to lack in her later books–editing. My favorites were 1, 5 (ironic because it is the book I detest), and 7, Part 2. Some of the most problematic parts of Rowling’s 7th book were dealt with well in the movie (Steve Kloves, you may live. You are forgiven for some of your earlier mistakes…for now).
Here there be spoilers.
In light of the Oslo shooting, I will try to keep the last Norway post from sounding too flippant. As I mentioned in my previous entry, I found the Sognefjord impactual. I really couldn’t get close enough to those fjords. The way the slightest movement of the clouds or the sun made them so very different, so alive. If you ever have the chance to see the fjords, you must do it. Don’t stay in the cities in Norway! I pine.
Bergen was cute as a button. We were only there a couple of days, and we hit an art museum with a fairly modern focus. Our hotel was right on the harbor, so we walked right off the fjord cruise and into the front door of our hotel, making up in some ways for our suburban Oslo hotel. We walked around the city and took in the atmosphere.
I have to admit at this point of the trip, I knew Neal had died, and that weighed upon me heavily. Catrina was really wonderful. She had no reason to expect I would turn into a stick-in-the-mud this trip, but I did, given grief and all. It was great traveling with her.
I know, you all want pictures. I’ll see what I can do. They’re still on my camera. This week Bryon and I get ready for AnimeIowa, I have all my writing to sneak in, and I’m working. But as soon as I can, you’ll see them.
Tomorrow, maybe, some conversation about Captain America.
Catherine
I can’t say what I would have to say better than my friend Catrina Horsfield has said it.
The only thing that I can add is that fundamentalism is the most dangerous force in the world today. We need to be waging peace and raising less people who believe that there are causes worth murdering for. In all countries. In all religions. In all political affiliations.
And we ought to be revisiting the lyrics of John Lennon’s Imagine on a fairly regular basis.
Catherine