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Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
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matociquala
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Finished my second skein of yarn, which looks almost exactly like the first one.
It's official: plying is the most boring thing ever.
But at least it prevents snacking.
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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It turns out that "Rexroth's Daughter" is actually pretty easy. At least a cheater version.
Now I just have to convince my brain to sing it in my range rather than Greg's. Because he's really not a soprano.
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Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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A very busy rest day.
For anybody who feels like playing, it looks like ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) novel_in_90 is starting up another round on january one. I will be playing: I have Grail to finish.
In a minute here I'm going to shower and dress and put the dog out and then go swim before my massage therapy appointment, and then I'm going to go over the see ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ashacat and netcurmudgeon and the boys. I will be delivering food and distracting children. I will probably bring my spinning, too, because young Sunil is fascinated by the spindle. I will try not to drop it on the coffee table this time. (Sorry.)
evynrude is coming too, which means I will be touching my guitar for the first time since October. Pray for my friends' ears.
Well, we'll have fun, even if we suck.
Then I get to come home and not do much of anything until tomorrow night. Maybe read. I need to read.
Post-novella ennui in five, four, three--
I'm taking the rest of the year off. That sounds so impressive when I say it that way. *g*
Meanwhile, outside the wind is howling, and it's time I got up and packed my plantation. See you on the other side.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Monday, December 28th, 2009
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mistborn
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First off, a note about the David Gemmell Legend Award. Named after the late, great UK writer of heroic fantasy, the award is in its second year and seeks to showcase novels "in the spirit or tradition of David Gemmell's own work" (for what that means, see here). Titles are nominated by publishers and then whittled down by online voting from fans. This year Tor has nominated both WARBREAKER and THE GATHERING STORM along with 11 other deserving books, making for a long list of 60 titles from all nominating publishers. Online voting on the long list of nominees has just begun and will continue through the end of March. At that point they'll tally up the top five vote-getters and start a new vote (vote totals don't carry over from the first round). I made the short list last year with HERO OF AGES (which wasn't even out in the UK at the time) and expected to get soundly beaten by Joe Abercrombie's LAST ARGUMENT OF KINGS, but instead the final nod went to BLOOD OF ELVES by Andrzej Sapkowski. Anyway, if you'd like to vote on the 2009 book you feel best fits the criteria, you can do that here. The committee has also started two new awards this year, the Morningstar for best newcomer and the Ravenheart for best cover art.
In the most recent MISTBORN 3 annotations I discuss the Lord Ruler's final message as well as Sazed's memorization skills and Breeze's nobleman status. New annotations go up every Tuesday and Thursday. If you haven't checked out the annotations before, they're like the director's commentary on a DVD—I discuss my books chapter by chapter, and so far I've talked about ELANTRIS, MISTBORN: THE FINAL EMPIRE, and MISTBORN 2: THE WELL OF ASCENSION. I'll also start posting WARBREAKER annotations sometime in the next few months, possibly before I'm done posting the MISTBORN 3: THE HERO OF AGES annotations. I figure that the dedicated fans who come to my website deserve some good bonus content, so here you go!
In this week's Writing Excuses episode I discuss tragedy with Dan Wells and Howard Tayler. Why write tragedy, and how to do it well? Give the podcast a listen.
By the way, my agent, Joshua Bilmes, also represents the talented Elizabeth Moon, and he wants help tracking down a mystery. Elizabeth's book THE SPEED OF DARK sells far more copies in trade paperback in the Salt Lake City area than anywhere else in North America. Why is that? What Salt Lake-area fans/booksellers have been recommending the book to all their friends and customers? Joshua is dying to know.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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708 words on The White City, and the Secrit Project finalized.
I have only two scenes and a transition on The White City left, and I have to go back through and salt in more character bits and clues and red herrings. So close. So close.
This novella is rapidly turning into a novel.
Where the hell is my climactic space battle? Two more goddamned scenes, book. GET ON IT.
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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Due to a massive upswing in bizarre Japanese wedding spam, I have disabled anonymous comments.
openID and livejournal accounts may comment freely.
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Comments: Read 13 or Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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Today's teacup: violets
Today's tea: Today is a day requiring both blackcurrant tea and salabat, which I made with jasmine green tea. (See below.)
Temperature this morning: 28 degrees
I'm finding myself a little crabby with the NPR story this morning on Louisa May Alcott, which seems a little disingenuous to me in that there's a deal of censure being attached to Alcott's working toward making a living.
Artists, of course, are expected to spend tewnty years learning a craft and art that they will then do just for the love of it. The fact is, yes, most of us will do it just for the love of it.
But we also need to eat.
Alcott grew up in grinding poverty with a fabulously popular but indigent father. The fact that she was concerned with securing a good encome in her adulthood does not make her less of an artist; it makes her an artist like any other.
  High-mindedness and a desire for financial stability are not mutually exclusive, you know.
Alcott supported her family and herself with her work. She was an independent woman in an era when that was not common or encouraged. I am not, personally, a big fan of her work (though the ivy story in A Garland for Girls stays with me to this day), but I am a fan of her life.
And I'm pretty sure that the author of Little Women and Hospital Sketches could manage to be both an artist and mercenary at the same time.
Of course, I am a commercial artist myself. If nobody wants to read my books, I don't eat. Fortunately, I do consider accessibility an artistic value (one that I am not particularly good at, but it's nice to have goals) and I don't consider it a value that necessarily lies in opposition to depth of meanng or nuance or ambiguity. The hard trick, of course, is balancing it all. Layers; this is what layers are for.
cristalia has been talking a bunch about Dashiell Hammett lately; I also offer Dennis Lehane as an example. (Mystery has figured out how to do this well; I imagine SFF can pull it off too.)
Both of them, I am pretty sure, earn(ed) a living.
Today I must work on The Secret Project With kylecassidy (also featureing trillian_stars) and The White City. I think part of the problem I am having with The White City is that it is at its heart a very bleak little book, and it ends with a noble sacrifice and a cold wind blowing--and I am a little scared of writing that, because it's so sad. Also, there's the simple logistics of Our Heroes solving the mystery. Which is apparently trickier than it might seem.
La.
Well, blogging doesn't get the writing done. Off we go, avoidant-lass
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Comments: Read 48 or Add Your Own.
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Sunday, December 27th, 2009
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matociquala
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Item the first: For anybody who thinks they might want a Giant Ridiculous Dogge on their very own, my mom and her partner have a bitch in whelp, and are expecting puppies on the ground in January if all goes well.
You can read thecoughlin's informational post here. If that intrigues you, the Eiledon Briards website is here.
Item the second: Climbed tonight with buymeaclue and TBRE and The Jeff. Did not climb particularly well, mind you, but I did get out there. Better luck on Monday. *g*
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Comments: Read 10 or Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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Around 600 words on The White City today, and still waiting for it to tell me how it goes. I wrote the last scene (denouement), and the closing sentence, but I'm missing like four scenes that comprise the climax.
It's interesting writing Sebastien in a situation where he is NOT in charge.
Tomorrow is a work day. God damn it. I will have focus and I will get somewhere.
Well, time to stare at it for a while again.
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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Teacup today: cabbage roses, a gift from ctwriter.
Tea today: Mokalbari East
Temperature this morning: a balmy fiftyish
Sebastien is having a fraught conversation with somebody he's never met before, who knows him uncomfortably well. I have just skipped the climax and am working on the denouement.
ETA: And a very brave neighborhood cat is apparently using our back porch as a base of operations, as there are two Green Bits (TM) on the steps. I wonder if that was the end of our Kitchen Smouse.
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Comments: Read 13 or Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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Finished candles.
I really like the blue one.
I should eat something and work for a bit before it's time to go climbing with buymeaclue, The Jeff, and TBRE.
In other news, the rain and warmth came overnight, and now the snow is gone. It was a special delivery, just for Christmas.
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Comments: Read 21 or Add Your Own.
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Saturday, December 26th, 2009
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matociquala
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Just finished and filed my review of Sherlock Holmes for Tor.com (short version: it was awful and I loved it), and before that, I made some candles. See, I used to commit chandlery fairly often but had fallen out of the habit, and yesterday cristalia mentioned she was thinking of taking it up, which inspired me to break out the wax and crayons.
I'm still staring meaningfully at The White City, trying to figure out how the damed thing works. It would be nice if I could finish it by year's-end. But it all depends on if the story tells me how it ends.
I guess tomorrow I start rereading it again.
It's finally raining out there, and the wind is gusting fiercely, but it's 41 degrees, which seems positively balmly.
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Comments: Read 10 or Add Your Own.
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varkat
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 I know it's after 9 p.m. the day after Christmas and likely very few people will see this before next week, but I had to share the very awesome review for an incredible debut novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin (forthcoming in February 2010 from Orbit). And I quote, "This is an astounding debut novel. The worldbuilding is solid, the characterization superb, the plot complicated yet clear. Yeine is a fantastic protagonist and her journey is compelling and memorable....Look no further for an original and thought-provoking novel." Romantic Times, Top Pick Gold rating! This after a rave from Publishers Weekly as well. An incredible start to an amazing series.
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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My mom made me a totally awesome pair of pink and purple socks!
I guess now I get to sit and stare and think about how to fix The White City so it works. Maybe I will spin and listen to NPR. That seems a sitting and staring sort of occupation.
So close to the end. So close. Two ot three days' work, if I can just figure out what the work should be.
Meanwhile, today's teacup is one sent to me by stwish, made by his friends at Earthbound Arts (I also have a mermaid and a faerie queene--ornaments--from there, and both are lovely) And today's tea is the last of the crepe faire from Stash--the last crepe faire ever, I suspect, as they've discontinued the flavor.
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Comments: Read 18 or Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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I have read and edited that which I have written of The White City. And wonder of wonder, I like it. A lot, actually.
And still I have no idea at all how to end it. I mean, I know who the killer is and stuff. But I don't know how to build the climax and a thematic resolution that will make a satisfying finish to the story. Also, I have to go back and put in some more clues who the killer is. Making things feel inevitable and not arbitrary is a significant portion of the storyteller's craft.
I sense a lot of staring and pacing in my life for the next week or so.
"No really. I am working!"
Pursuant to the spinning, I'm thinking again about the stuff we strive to get right in fantasy. So much of the work set in the past, or alternate pasts, gets the details of life so very wrong. People have no trades, or if they do they are desperate to escape them. And actually, people who work with their hands often like what they do. Making stuff, after all, is quite satisfying.
Some authors do this very well--Connie Willis, Barbara Hambly. People work in their books, and the worlds feel real.
Another thing that always seems to fall out of fantasy written by modern authors is how integrated life was. People did not have work and leisure; everything ran together. You sat and spun while someone told stories, or you sang songs and worked the winch, or talked and shucked peas. And good tradesmen were respected in direct proportion to their indispensibility. A village blacksmith or potter is a hard thing to live without.
Our modern emphasis on book learning, I think, creeps in there and corrupts how we talks about other cultures.
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Comments: Read 38 or Add Your Own.
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Friday, December 25th, 2009
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matociquala
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My poor nondog.
Still no idea about how to be a dog.
I gave him his holiday dinner, which is canned dog food (he has never had it before) and he's still trying to figure out what to do with it.
He is starting to think it might taste REALLY good, though.
(Technically speaking, it's dessert: he had his regular dinner about an hour ago.)
He does not know how to be a dog, but he is learning. He actually stole something out of the recycling bin the other day to lick, which is a first. It was a chicken broth container.
He's really quite ludicrous, and I love him very much.
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Comments: Read 32 or Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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Christmas pronounced a success. (My immediate local family--none of us are actually Christians, but we celebrate a secular Christmas anyway, and often these days it even falls on the actual day. It didn't always, because my mom was a hospital employee for 25 years.)(See above, December Non-Denominational Gift-Giving Day.)
 We made out first ever Yorkshire puddings, which came out awesome and we were all boggled at just how easy it is. Next time, a little longer in the oven, and we will use a metal muffin tin instead of the silicon muffin cups, because, well, the silicon cups were too slippery and the puddings just levitated themselves out of the cups rather than getting tall. Not enough friction!
(The muffin cups were a gift from truepenny: this was their inaugural run. Thank you!!!)
Here are the socks and the blanket my mom knitted me, because I promised to brag about them.
 And here is my first ever hank of yarn, which I gave to my mother. It's "art yarn," which is to say it's not art yarn at all. It just sucks. But hey, it's mine and I made it.
We tried the prime rib recipe from Cook's Illustrated, and came to the conclusion that while it is good, our family recipe process is better. (We were all actually capable of stopping eating after one slice. Which never happens the way we usually do it.) However, their au jus recipe rocked, though next year we're leaving out the wine.
And Yorkshire puddings are a permanent addition. In two years, they'll be an ancient family tradition.
And then I beat the freezing rain home and let the dog out.
Now I'm going to make some tea and put on my wrist braces and go sit under my new blanket and work on The White City, because TBRE is out in the world tonight and I have the whole luxurious house to myself.
Oh, and gotta water the tree.
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Comments: Read 41 or Add Your Own.
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Thursday, December 24th, 2009
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matociquala
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Your December Non-Denominational Gift-Giving Day Present from the Shadow Unit crew: "On Faith."
Come and get it.
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Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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It's a December Non-Denominational-Gift-Giving Day miracle! Two much-delayed checks have arrived today, along with a copy of the Russian SF magazine Esli, with truepenny-n-my space pirate story "Boojum" innit.
woot!
And now time to start that haaaaaaaaaaaaaaam. As soon as I find the recipe...
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Comments: Read 8 or Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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...and there was nobody there to tell me that i couldn't keep her.
 And this is why the Inauthentic Borscht recipe calls for grating the beets in a clean sink. (I pour boiling water into mine to rinse after I scrub it down, before using it as a food prep surface.
Mmm. Beets.
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Comments: Read 28 or Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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| Time: | 9:21 am. |
| Mood: |  cheerful. |
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Watching the giant Wookiee muppet dog run around the back yard gives me a very good idea of what the hair movement on a sasquatch would look like.
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Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.
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docbrite
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So I guess I had a pretty massive freakout over the past couple of days. It's chronicled on Twitter, more or less. To me it seemed to start with a horrible dream I had Monday morning. In this nightmare I was making a real effort to reconnect with my characters, but I'd gotten the wrong ones, which were more or less the Cure. (Anybody with half an eye can see the Cure's influence on Lost Souls, or so I assume.) They had all gone down to Shell Beach and commandeered barges, a tugboat, and some kind of tanker, with which they were planning a terrorist attack. Samuel L. Jackson was tearing down the Reggio highway in a furious attempt to stop them, but everybody knew it was my fault and hated me, including Chris, who promptly dumped my ass.
Some of my worst dreams are those in which I'm back with one of my exes. I remember Chris and feel the lack of him, but know I have to be with this once-beloved foe instead. It is the hollowest, loneliest feeling I've known in dream. Usually I wake up, become aware of him sleeping beside me, and feel tremendous relief. This time I woke up within the dream and knew I'd really done it, I'd finally fucked up bad enough to lose him (by putting the Cure on terrorist barges in Shell Beach, yes, I see the absurdity of this, but it didn't help at the time). I saw life without him, an endless featureless plain the color of a bruise. I cried and woke myself and him up saying "Chris. Chris. Chris" and babbling about wrong characters on barges, trying to explain this utter incoherence.
The ensuing day did not pass well. Even tranked to the gills, I couldn't seem to stop sobbing and panicking and doomsaying. I could not bathe. I could not even consider leaving the house (this has been a problem lately). I finally called my intermittent shrink and sobbed and babbled some more until she agreed to give me a few, VERY few, barbiturates to help me function over these next few days. I don't stress much about the holidays (we stopped doing gifts years ago, stocked up on stuff and unable to afford it), but my mom and a dear friend are coming to visit, and I would like to be able to act like something resembling a human being around them. Those who were reading back in the dark days of 2005 will remember my adventures with Dr. Jesus and the Great BUTALBITAL. Butalbital has come into my life again, with its idolatrous-sounding name and its extremely short-term help. Short-term because it's addictive as shit and not even slightly appropriate for treating long-term depression, but thank God she heard enough of the fraying in my voice to throw me a quick merciful lifeline (a scant 10 pills to be parceled out carefully over at least 4 days, worryworts) until I can go see her and figure out why my usual shit's not working anymore. Pharmaceuticals, you've nearly killed me and you've saved my life, both many times. Just like a goddamn lover, ain'tcha? ("Almost had your hooks in me, din'tcha, dear?")
So today my Butalbital and I did laundry, cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed the house, and baked a lovely chocolate chip-pecan pie. Tomorrow we'll greet our guests and try to absorb their love through the merciful haze that says so kindly, "No, that bruise color isn't filling your vision, you don't reek of rotting meat, these people love you, they're not counting the hours until they can get away or silently analyzing the stupidity of everything you say."
So that's the story of my big freakout. As ever, I tell it because of my determination to chronicle the life of one writer's journey through loss, depression, addiction, sorrow, joy, and sometimes redemption in the wake of the post-Katrina federal levee failure. I've written no fiction in three years now, so this is really all I have to offer, and I give it to you without shame. There's no reason for shame. I wasn't like this before August 29, 2005. I'd dealt with depression off and on since I was 17, but at the time of the levee failure I was on no psychiatric drugs, writing prolifically, and (I thought) fairly happy. Now I struggle most days just not to be a mess, and there are a hell of a lot of people who are a hell of a lot worse off than I am ... and a hell of a lot more people who survived the levee failure and its aftermath, but not the lives they tried to piece back together afterward. They gave themselves to the Great Subaudible. I tell you these things in part to keep myself from doing the same.
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Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
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matociquala
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So there's my 1.5 attempt at spinning. The outside is better than the inside, but still very very erratic. And now I have to figure out when the spindle is full, and how to ply it....
(This is lovely wool that asciikitty sent. It's more teal than blue in person.)
It's the 1.5 because here is the .5 attempt, with combed 100% virgin silver Briard:
That's the belly of the GRD's stuffed lion, if you want to know. *g*
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Comments: Read 52 or Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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1) Tomorrow, at some point, there will be a new episode of Shadow Unit. I can't tell you when exactly, but it's called "On Faith" and it is our Very Special Holiday Episode.
It was written by Sarah Monette, and don't forget to check for easter eggs. *g*
There might also be a S3 trailer. Maybe.
2) Good climbing night tonight. I only did four walls, but one was a new 5.8 on the 45-foot overhand, which includes a little roof--and I didthe first thirty feet of it in one big push, which made me feel really good about myself. Two other routes were 5.9s on the slab that had previously eluded me. I didn't do 'em clean or neat, but I did 'em. And next time I will do better. (I also sent a 5.8 I have gotten before.)
Joy was redoubled by listening to two nice climber boys from Colorado bitch about how our 5.8s are like everybody else's 5.10s. I mean, I know it, but it's nice to have confirmed.
3) I am making borscht tomorrow, dammit. TBRE and I are both giving blood. We have an excuse to need beets and beef. (It was also a good excuse for steak tonight.)
4) I'm on page 57 of rereading The White City and it hasn't fallen apart on me yet. There's always the next bit, of course...
5) Crowded House's "Transit Lounge" is so a gamma song.
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Comments: Read 13 or Add Your Own.
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varkat
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I asked Sarah A. Hoyt if she'd like to guest blog for me, anything relating to the holidays, and, as usual, she's put her own very unique spin on things, and so I present to you future-history holidays:
I’ll Be Home For Christmas
Ahead, there are spaceports, and strange, different worlds. Ahead, in the far off future, if we squint, the worlds spread out like decorations and humans are in them. And humans celebrate Christmas. Or Winter Solestice. Or a holiday without name that symbolizes a hope of rebirth and future warmth ahead.
Just like humans in the Southern hemisphere carried with them a holiday of the northern hemisphere, a celebration of the coming spring in the darkest day of winter and a memory of sacrifices offered so the world wouldn’t be consumed by ice, so will they adapt to space.
In a world we can only imagine, a little boy will ask his immigrant parents, “Mom, dad, what is a tree?”
And the parents will look at their lychen garden and try to figure out how to explain the dim memory of plant life even they don’t remember.
“Mother, what is a tree?” a little girl will ask aboard a generation ship. And the mother will sigh and say “There are seeds in the hold. Your grandchild will see, when get to our destination, and the tree is sewn and grows.”
“What is winter,” a child will ask in a place without seasons.
“What is a manger?” another will ask in a religious colony in a world so alien the only life are reptiles.
“How could the fuel last that long?” Another will ask, in a different religious colony, where a long-prosecuted people will find refuge from their wandering. For a while, at least. “Was it nuclear?”
And each time the answer will be hesitant and contorted by the restrictions of time and place. And each time the memories will wind a bit more, as they project into the future.
Religions will change. Be forgotten. Worlds will be forgotten too. And humans will change to adapt to new and strange environments.
But if history is a judge, the bright thread of a holiday of hope, a holiday of faith, a bright bead in the sameness of days will stay.
In some distant world, around different stars, human families will gather. The transient will wash away. The love, the hope, the warmth will remain shining like gold in the vastness of time and space. And humanity will be home for Christmas.
To visit some of Sarah's worlds, check out:
THE DARKSHIP THIEVES (science fiction, forthcoming from Baen Books)
The Magical British Empire series (steampunk trilogy from Bantam Spectra)
The Three Musketeers Mysteries (written as Sarah D'Almeida for Berkley Prime Crime)
The Shifters series (urban fantasy written for Baen Books)
and more!
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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One of the things I love about fandom is that, at its best, it's a potlatch society. It's one of the last few places in the Western world where a person's social status and the respect in which they are held is determined by the quality and magnanimity and effort involved in what they give away.
I've been involved in Criminal Minds fandom and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. fandom and SFF fandom, and I used to tell people I wasn't a real fan, because I didn't contribute enough to the communities. But I guess I do bring something, and I should value that.
I think of Yuletide, for example, or the people who write fic and turn it loose in the world for other people to read and enjoy, or the people who write meta and reviews and amazing critical analysis, and the people who run conventions, and the people who organize fan fundraisers, and the people who read carefully and comment and maintain rec lists, and the people who critique and educate about social issues, and the people who maintain lending libraries of out-of-print works, all for the joy of sharing something they love and feel strongly about.
Giving stuff away--and I don't mean obligatory gifts, the oh my god I have to find something for my mother in law that costs at least seventy-five bucks gifts--is a small human act of heroism. When we give time, or kindness, or something we know somebody else will love (or needs), we are reflecting, for a moment, our best selves. And in the act, we receive, as well: giving benefits the giver. Not in gratitude, but in oxytocin; the elevation that comes from community, from purpose. The love hormone, they call it, but what it really is is the social bonding hormone.
It's the thing that makes us a tribe. And the Internet makes that tribe world-wide.
I remember one time when I was so sad. I had walking pneumonia and a broken heart, and I was taking the bus home from work in a howling nor'easter and I had a mile to walk with no sidewalk from the bus stop to my door. And as I was getting off the bus, a pretty girl smiled at me. Just the gift of a smile, no reason. Maybe I looked as sad as I felt.
I still remember her, and that smile was in 1995.
As I've gotten older, this has become more and more clear to me. All I am, all I do in the world, the only value any of it has is where it benefits the world around me.
We all die. No, really. We strut our little time upon the--well, you know it. Trying never to die is futile and sad; but the prospect of that inevitability, I think, can be comforting. When we look at our own impermanence (as individuals, as cultures, as a species) then it starts to come plain that the moral value that brings the most good into the world is compassion.
Compassion is hard and scary. It means putting ourselves at risk and really listening to other people, even when we disagree with them. Even when they want to destroy us, or are completely oblivious to our needs. It does not preclude self-defense or anger, of course. And it does not mean that we have to martyr ourselves to the cruelty of others.
But it does mean that maybe, when it costs us nothing to give something away, we can do it. We can fold that neglected laundry we pull out of the dryer in the communal laundry room of life. That's a gift, after all.
Somehow, we've gotten this idea that giving is about stuff. And all that stuff we collect can make us more comfortable, but our enduring legacy is the attention we pay. The good stuff is the ways we help the world, the little pleasures we bring to others, the trees we plant, and the houses we build.
And so many of the things we can give away cost us nothing. Nothing we need, anyway. A little self-importance, a little of our self-image as Important Busy People Who Own The Road.
I like to let people into traffic. You know, I'm almost never in that much of a hurry to get somewhere. And the surprised and relieved looks they give me through the driver's side window are so very gratifying.
We are so small, and the night is so large. If we don't hold the light for each other, who will?
So this is just to say thank you to everybody who's let me into traffic over the years. For all the little kindnesses and efforts on my behalf, or just generous gestures broadcast. For all the aha moments, and the belly laughs or snickers, the things that made me go huh I'm not sure that's right.
Thanks for all the comments and arguments and small generousities. Thanks to everybody who's given me the gift of their attention, either here or to my published work: even if you hated what I had to say, you listened. (and thank you to asciikitty and coffeeem, as there is !fiber! in my mailbox today to go with my shiny new spindle.)
I'll do my best to pass it along where I can.
Happy sun return. Happy new year.
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Comments: Read 55 or Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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On the job this morning, working on The Steles of the Sky and The White City and drinking rose congou tea until it's time to go help fetch ashacat and Naveen home from the hospital. Then, go climb, come home, and work some more. How on earth did it already get to be Wednesday?
Temperature with wind chill this morning, four degrees. It's cold in this house this morning. Need more toast!
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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Gray morning out there in the morning, the sky just rimming apricot around a vault of faintly luminous slate. You wouldn't know the sky was up there if you weren't looking at the stark claws of naked trees against it.
The sky is so much brighter when there's snow across the ground.
Out in the street, the garbage trucks are grumbling from driveway to driveway, grim flat-nosed workaday goblins. Pragmatic and unsentimental. I wonder what they make of the fairy lights that drape every house on my block.
I think I need to throw on a sweater and take the dog for a walk before the sun comes up.
This is where I live.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
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matociquala
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Got some work done on The White City tonight, Mostly, it amounted to comma fiddling in the opening scenes--I haven't touched it since September, and I will have to get back into its skin to work on it, of course. But the writing in the early bits is quite creditable, and it's easy to fall back in love with these characters.
Of course, the structure is still broken, and the mystery plot is flopping on the floor like a dying and unhappy fish, and then there are those scenes that are currently indicated by something more or less reminiscent of this: [Put a scene in which Abby Irene figures out that Sebastien is withholding information here].
It's funny. The more I learn about writing--the better I get at it--the worse my first drafts get. They're all big loops and lines now, incomplete arches and spans. Sweep and movement, and the structures don't hold.
But I enjoy the process of taking those pieces and building a narrative out of them, and the narratives themselves are growing more complex and self-supporting. I've been saying for years that writng is too complicated to do well consciously--that for me it takes iterative passes and a lot of it needs to take place down in the subconscious. And this... more relaxed startegy seems to be helping with that, now that I've successfully internalized my tools.
It took a lot of conscious application to develop those tools, mind you--study and intellectualization. But now I think I might be learning to jam.
Which is what we play all those fucking scales for, after all.
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Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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The only problem with the baby ashacat made is that I have a great big winter CSA order burning a hole in my crisper drawers.
And some of it wants to be borscht, dammit. And I have no time.
I have celeriac and beets and tiny potatoes and tiny sweet potatoes and parsnips and carrots and red cabbage and delicata squash and butternut squash and winter greens and no time to eat any of it.
Also, my good knives are still at the Grinch's shop at the North Pole. It's like an itch.
Next Thursday, little vegetable drawer. Thursday. You and me. We're going to have some fun together.
And I'm probably going to make Chaz's tiny potato salad for the Xmas eve open house thingy, and maybe I will just make a damned pot of borscht, even with the bad knives. I've cooked with worse and it's seasonal, dammit. Though I'll have to get more garlic.
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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varkat
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While we're on the topic of holidays that don't suck, me and mine want to wish you all a fun, fanged and ferocious holiday. In that spirit, we offer up this music video (such as it is) of "Gina, the Red-Fanged Vampire."
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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matociquala
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Goals for today:
Clean off table
Do a little Christmas baking
Do laundry (ongoing)
Make dinner and dispensatory casseroles
Mail last round of DNDGGD* gifts
Work on The White City**
Pick up ornament hooks someplace
In the category and occasional series of Things That Actually Work As Advertised, at tanaise's urging, and due to a really good sale, I ordered myself a cotton henley from Lands' End. It came yesterday, I am wearing it, and it is awfully nice. Warm and thick and long enough even for my very long torso and broad shoulders. That is all and I thought you might like to know. (This is not a paid promotion. They also have turtlenecks.)
Tea today: gunpowder green
Teacup today: thatpotteryguy's medieval mug
Now, about those cookies... oh, right, I should eat something first.
The wonderful P. D. James on NPR.org
*December Non-Denominational Gift-Giving Day. They were supposed to go out yesterday, but, well, baby!
**Oh, lord, what a mess. Well, soonest begun is first ended. And other pithy Yankee sayings.
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Comments: Read 14 or Add Your Own.
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varkat
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At a loss about what to get the vampire on your list? Chloe Neill chimes in with a fabulous list of gifts that don't bite, even if their recipients do!
A VAMPIRE'S HOLIDAY WISH LIST
A couple of weeks ago, the fabulous readers over at my Yahoo boards were offering up holiday gift suggestions for the characters in my Chicagoland Vampires series. That got me thinking--what's an appropriate gift for the vampire on your holiday list? Here are some ideas!
1. Sunscreen: I think this one speaks for itself.
2. MP3 Player: Vampires spend a lot of time unconscious, especially in the summertime when the days are long and the nights are short. An MP3 player--preloaded with Gothy goodness--will keep them occupied.
3. Corset and blood-red high heels: There are few vampires (Merit excluded) who don't appreciate the appeal of a fabulous corset and pair of blood-red high heels. What modern vampire doesn't enjoy the chance to play sexy she-vamp?
4. "Property of Vampire" stickers: Since vampires do spend so much time unconscious/undead/underground, help them protect their belongings by gifting some "property of vampire" labels.
5. Kevlar: No one likes a stake through the heart, least of all vampires. Offer up a Kevlar vest to keep the immortal heart beating.
6. Perfume-of-the-Month Club {http://www.club-offers.com/perfume-emporium/mini-perfume/}: If your resident vampire falls into the "undead" category, a little freshening up probably isn't a bad idea. Hold off the "eau de undead" by ensuring they receive a new bottle of perfume or cologne each month.
7. UV Resistant Clothing: Clothes that help repel UV rays could come in handy in the event your vamp needs to make a daytime run. 8. Subscription to "Blood": Help the vampire in your life stay up to date on the latest hematological research with a subscription to the medical journal Blood.
9. Vampire Dating Guide: It can be hard to meet that special someone when sunlight fries you to ashes. So give your undead friend a dating guide to help them avoid the pitfalls of fanged courtship.
10. Angel: Seasons One - Five: David Boreanaz + Vampire hero. 'Nuff said.
Hope these ideas are helpful! Best wishes for a safe, happy and stake-free holiday!
Chloe Neill
Author of the Chicagoland Vampires series
SOME GIRLS BITE
FRIDAY NIGHT BITES
TWICE BITTEN
 
Also look for FIRESPELL, the first in her Dark Elite YA urban fantasy series forthcoming in January 2010!
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Monday, December 21st, 2009
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mistborn
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Over at the Book Smugglers they've posted a guest spot from me on my favorite reads of 2009. As I've said before, I was sad that unlike a lot of you I didn't get to rush out and read a new Wheel of Time book this October. On that blog I share a list of what I did get to read instead.
There's been a lot of love for WARBREAKER recently. It's the December discussion topic for GoodReads' fantasy book club, and I'll be participating in the discussion there in January. The book also got the #4 slot on Barnes & Noble's book clubs Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Novels of 2009 list. (They discussed it back in July; see my Q&A thread there). But the biggest news is probably that WARBREAKER has garnered a nomination from the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Awards for Best Epic Fantasy of 2009. (See the full list of nominees here.) So far that's five fantasy novels out from Tor, five Romantic Times award nominations, and two wins (ELANTRIS and HERO OF AGES). Wow! If you don't know what all the fuss is about, I hear that Borders is a good place to buy WARBREAKER right now—they are the most likely chain to have copies in stock. (You can check your local store's inventory at the link.) Or of course check the list of stores that have signed copies.
In this week's episode of the Writing Excuses podcast, Dan, Howard, and I talk about antiheroes. Familiar with The Talented Mr. Ripley? Howard isn't.
In the most recent annotations for MISTBORN 3, I talk about Sazed putting on his metalminds and Spook's romance with Beldre as well as the death of Bilg. Don't remember Bilg? Umm . . . Oh, and I also put up an annotation for "Defending Elysium" (but be sure you read the story first).
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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creative.
lazy.
sleepy.
cranky, and getting crankier.
bitchy.
determined.
contemplative.
grateful.
relaxed.
amused.
groggy.
warm.
naughty.
loved.
content.
impressed.
dizzy.
accomplished.
hopeful.
snowy.
pleased.
bouncy.