Let's see. Anything interesting so far this weekend? I called Deirdre yesterday, 'cause it was her birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEIRDRE!) and they'd had a v. nice day of going to the zoo and the aquarium. I wrote 2300 words and made bread and edited a little of Sarah's book, which she has finished (YAY SARAH!) and we went to see Bend It Like Beckham and saw several people we knew at the theatre, which was cool. Came home and watched Stargate (almost done with season 3!) and ate way too much ice cream and finally went to bed *splat*.
Did something similar Friday night, in fact. Except without the too much ice cream.
Wrote 1150ish words so far this morning, and if Ted in fact goes to fencing, I'll probably do some more writing.
I need to walk the dog.
Thinks to do today:
1. write 1100 words
2. walk Chanti
3. finish the book I'm reading
4. laundry
5. edit some more of Sarah's book
Thinks to do, Friday August 29:
1. walk the dorgy
2. write 1100 words*
*Okay, so actually I wrote my 1100 words for Friday on Saturday, but at least I wrote them!
Thinks to do, Saturday August 30:
1. walk the dorgy
2. write 1100 words
3. send writersweekend check
4. edit sarah's book
5. work on sarahpalmero
6. make bread
I have rejoined the world of the living. At least partly. Took a 4 hour nap yesterday afternoon which inevitably made me sleep badly last night, but not much to be done about that except drink yourself into a stupor and pass out, which doesn't actually work for me, so no point. We watched three episodes of Stargate, and that was about the sum total of the evening.
My work successfully launched our first (in fact, apparently the first) all-Spanish healthcare site last night: Mi Salud @ Anthem. Go us. :)
This is the all posting, all the time version of The Essential Kit. Gotta do something to keep myself awake.
Took a 12 minute nap before Ted came home and woke me up. Went to lunch. Lunch goooood. Came home. Have now more or less survived a meeting in which everyone is pretty much saying, "Code freeze in five days? Wow. I haven't done *anything* for this project." The project manager is saying, "No! No! *Lie* to me!"
I believe the remainder of my afternoon is going to involve flopping into bed and napping until Ted gets home. Then it's off to the comic shop, and now since I've started letting people read THUNDERBIRD FALLS, I rrrrrreeeeaalllly have to write at least a few words on it tonight.
*splat*
Ok. I have told my project manager that I've been up since 2am and that I'm going to go shower, and that showering may prompt napping, and if it does, I'll be back in time for the 1pm meeting.
Showering now. I'm thinking of *gasp* doing some *writing* after that.
music: Crush, Bon Jovi
I'm wrong. The relevant coworkers are at work already. And I don't have the password to work on Sarah's site saved on this computer yet. *thonk thonk thonk*
I'm not sure it actually fills me with delight that I was able to complete the two and a half weeks of work I was behind in the last three hours. I also made a loaf of bread and talked to Ted, who got up at 6 to go to work and reboot the fucking server, for 15 minutes.
Those things which I have not completed at work are not completed because they're dependent on other people also doing their work, most of which was due by last Friday at the latest, and most of which isn't done, or because the ticket request wasn't clear enough for me to be able to progress.
Granted, I've only gotten one of the nine sites that needs updating done, but those nine aren't supposed to be updated until the one has been tested and verified, so that I can just port over my changes without incident.
My coworkers won't be in for at least ten minutes, and possibly as much as 90 minutes.
Maybe I'll go work on Sarah's site a bit.
music: Absolutely, Young Dubliners
"Couldn't sleep?"
"How could you tell?"
"You're up."
I have been awake since two fucking fifteen, when Ted's fucking work called to tell him the server was down. For an hour I was too pissed to get back to sleep, and then the airport, which is less than two miles away, started doing I don't know what the fuck, testing engines or something, which involves a pervasive, ear-aching, bone deep whine which may or may not be generally audible under the ambient noise of day to day life but which is certainly audible right fucking now. Our bedroom window, which I closed when I went to bed because of the whine, faces the airport, and is providing far too little insulation against the noise. In fact, the whole goddamned house provides too little insulation, as I can still hear it, like the drone of the world's biggest soprano bee.
So I'm up, and going to work, because I'm so goddamned far behind at work and because I just want to get away from the fucking noise, that I might as well be at work if I'm going to be awake.
Really. *Really*. Bad mood.
"Doesn't anybody sleep around here?"
"'pparently not."
Name the movie.
music: Common Rotation, Big Fear
I have NET. *Man*! *God*, this is so much better! My connection's been getting slower and slower and slower over the last two weeks, and I've been able to do less and less and less work, but the cable guy came today and fixed up the stupid cables and now I have NET.
Also, my desk is now entirely clean, because I literally couldn't log on to my work network at all today, and so I spent the entire day cleaning my desk so the cable guy could get to the modem.
Now my goal is to keep the desk clean for the next week. O.O
In the meantime, I give you the capitals of the Spanish-speaking countries of the world:
Madrid, Espana. La Habana, Cuba. Mexico, Mexico. Guatamala, Guatamala. Panama, Panama. (I like those 3. They're easy.) La Paz, Bolivia. Lima, Peru. San Domingo, Republicana Dominicana. Tegucigalpa, Honduras (that one's hard). Montevideo, Uruguay. Acension, Paraguay. Bogata, Columbia. Buenos Aires, Argentina. Caracas, Venezula. Managua, Nicaragua. San Jose, Costa Rica. San Juan, Puerto Rico. Puerto Espana, Trinidad y Tobago. San Salvador, El Salvador. Santiago, Chile. Quito, Ecuador. And Belmopan, Belice, although I think Belice's official language is in fact English, but it's in Central America and I have friends who live there so I memorized it anyway. :)
Oh, and Balboa discovered what he called the South Sea which happened to be the Pacific Ocean. I think it's a little obnoxious of him to have 'discovered' it, what with, y'know, the Chinese and Japanese living on one side of it, and all the Native Americans living along the other side, but nevermind that. It's for extra credit on the quiz, so I need to know. :)
At 4pm, Chanti came running over to me and started poking me and going "Rrwff! Rrrrwwf! Rwuf!" Clearly, it was time to go for a walk. :)
miles to Rivendell: 178.5
Spanish class last night wasn't wildly inspiring. The prof seems nervous about talking in front of twenty-five people, so it was a little slow. He'll probably relax a little as the semester goes on. I have homework. I have to learn the names and capitals of the 21 (officially) Spanish-speaking countries in the world, and also find out what Balboa discovered. :)
Chanti and I went on a walk last night. 3 miles is a lot more fun to walk with Jai and Chanti than just with Chanti by herself. :) Somewhat amusingly, however, Chanti was VERY well behaved, making me suspect that she's extra-excited by Jai being there, a theory I'll test tonight when we walk. Assuming we walk. It's dumping rain. There will be no Mars-viewing for Alaskans. :(
miles to Rivendell: 175.75 (watch out, Heather!)
Oop. Fantasy Flight Games turned me down, but they did say they'd like to keep my submission on file in case they have additional assignments available in the future. So that's not *too* bad. :) They're only publishing 2 trilogies next year, and there were lots of submissions, so I'm not too crushed. Plus he invited me to send in new writing samples as my work continues, so, hey! Not too bad!
In other news, I got a wonderful letter from Jessie Wulf at the RMFW contest (ok, it was actually pretty much a form letter, but she wrote a personalized note on it, and that makes me cheerful!), and Teresa Nielsen Hayden is the SF/F category judge, which means she's got ... my submission, the name of which I won't mention because she's been by to read this page at least once and it's supposed to be a blind taste test. :)
And I'm making chicken soup for dinner, and boy does it smell good.
Hey! I've walked 19.5 miles since last Monday! No walk with Jai tonight, 'cause I've got Spanish class at 6pm and she doesn't get off work til 4:30, so the timing is too tight, but Chanti and I are going to go for a walk anyway. Despite the fact that it's dribbling rain.
Cheerful me!
Yes, the blog is mucked up. Thank the virus eating the internet. I can't stay connected to my ftp server long enough to affect the changes I'm trying to make. :P
My webpage seems to have disappeared. This is, I think, because of lousy net, not anything else, but it's a little disconcerting.
Jai and I did ALL the walking this weekend. Yesterday we were going to go out to Winner Creek Gorge, but I hadn't been feeling well, so we just did a 5 mile walk on the coastal trail, instead. It was gorgeous and we tired ourselves aaaalllll out. :) Then she came over this morning and we did another 3 mile walk, so go us! It was *really* nice. And now it's clouded up, so I'm extra glad we went this morning, because it was beautiful, then. *laugh* And Chantico is SO TIRED. :)
As an added bonus, I've got Jai watching Highlander, now. She's going to catch up to me and then we're going to try to figure out some way to watch the shows together, I think. That'll be fun. :)
Yesterday afternoon (after conking out for two hours from not feeling well), we gamed! I had a 7th level fighter, ehehehe. A half-orc named Orphy who has a double-headed orcish axe and the Greater Cleave feat. I was killing 6 and 8 orcs at a time, and I only stopped at 8 because there were no more in reaching distance! It was a lot of fun, and I hope we get another chance to game soon. *beam*
I can't see my webpage, so I'm not really sure what my numbers were on Friday, but I think that these are my
miles to Rivendell: 172.75
Very nice walk with Jai this evening. It's sooooo much nicer to walk with someone than not. Then I lent her the first 15 episodes of Highlander, and she lent me Chicago, and then Ted and I went and bought season 3 of Stargate. We were weak. :)
miles to Rivendell: 164.75
Oop. Forgot to record last night's miles to Rivendell: 160.75
Hey! Less than 300 miles to go! Ok, barely less, but less! Which means I have to walk, um. 2.5 miles a day every day until Dec. 17th in order to make it. Or, y'know. More. :)
Failed! Failed the red-eye upgrade roll! For both the Mexico trip *and* the Boston trip, siiiiigh. Oh well. I did, however, upgrade the trip back from Mexico, because what the hell. :) And I also consolidated my old Alaska Airlines mileage plan, the card for which I'd lost, with my new one, so that's good. And with the two trips this fall, we oughta rack up the mileage. Maybe next year we can go to Ireland, or something! In, y'know. Our copious free time.
Lucy has spent the last hour MEOWLing. She seems to have finally gotten over whatever her major malfunction was, and now she's sleeping on the monitor. Weird cat.
oh! oh! The nice people at the Irish embassy answered my email and told me that I could just scribble out the places where I'd screwed up on my passport application, and initial them. I think I'll do that, *and* write a letter saying, "They told me to do this!" Now I'm waiting to hear about what to do about the fact that they wrote the wrong city down on Deirdre's foreign birth registration form.
To summarize the Irish citizenship thing, for those readers who came in late:
As the grandchild of an Irish-born citizen (my grandfather emigrated to the States in the 1920s), I'm eligible for dual citizenship. There's a tremendous amount of paperwork that had to be located and filled out -- Grandpa's parents' marriage certificate, his birth certificate, his marriage certificate; my mom's birth certificate, her marriage certificate; and my birth certificate. I think that's everything. So we did all of that and in October 2001 my sister and I became foreign-born Irish citizens.
(There's no oath of allegiance required, no renunciation of American citizenship; it is, yes, legal and permitted to hold dual citizenship.)
So now, having farted around for a long time, I'm getting it together so I can get my passport and so that Ted can apply for his Irish citizenship by way of being married to an Irish citizen. (Him being able to do this is not dependent on my passport, it's just that I need to get the passport thing done.)
On a *completely* unrelated note, I'm thinking of dying my stripe back to brown for the winter.
It's very foggy out this morning. I like it. :)
Ted got an Alaska Airlines credit card offer which also has his current available miles on it, or which claims to, anyway, and it's nearly 25K miles, so I'm calling up our travel agent to see if we can upgrade the Mexico trip to 1st class. :)
Via Zalen: A Technical Review Of Kittens.
Not a whole heck of a lot else to report. The cable modem crashed last night, so I made a batch of strawberry jam (which seems to have set up! YAY!) and finished reading the Jenny Jones trilogy that I was so enamored of ten years ago when I read it first. Frankly, I have no idea what I saw in it, now. I think I'll bring them to Title Wave. o.O
The cats appear to be determinedly ignoring the new type of cat food we got for them. Well, in a few days, they're not going to have any choice.
So last night I went to this shamanism workshop, and that was interesting. I didn't learn anything from it that I hadn't learned from reading; nor did anything said blatantly contradict what I've read.
We did a drum circle, which is always fun -- there were THIRTY PEOPLE there! -- and later a shamanic journey to meet a power animal, which was really pretty unsuccessful from my point of view, although among the images that came to me was a frog. Three times. So perhaps that's something, or perhaps it's not.
It was, however, interesting. They've got another basic workshop coming up sometime next month that I'll probably go to, and a celtic shamanism workshop at the end of October that I'll probably go to, and then after that I'll see if I continue going.
The framing shop called and said the tortoise was ready!
They really hopped to get it done, 'cause they're going to the state fair for the next couple of weeks, and we told them it was fine if it took a few weeks to get it finished, but, well! They hurried for us! (We're good customers. This is at least the 10th piece we've brought in to have framed there.) And it's *beautiful*! I think the photo actually does a reasonably good job of representing the colors, and I'm just *so* happy with it! *beam*
They also said if either Ted or I ever wanted a job we should go by there and talk to them. :)
Jai and I went for a walk last night, which was very nice. Walking with someone is so much more fun than not.
miles to Rivendell: 156.75
It seems, judging from reactions in the comments, that I've been lacking clarity as to Ted's return to school. Let me clarify:
Ted's going back to school!
Ted's going back to school to get his culinary arts degree. :) It's a two year program which he'll be starting next Monday. He's all excited about it and every time we go anywhere with anything even vaguely resembling food or food preparation, he starts thinking about how he could arrange dishes and how to make different meals and all sorts of things. It's quite wonderful. :)
Yesterday we went to buy books for his school (and for my one class). That cost $508. Christ on a crutch. o.O
Jai and I went for a walk yesterday afternoon, which was really nice. :)
ALL the tv. We finished watching Stargate season 2 last night, which made us all say, "Oh SHIT!" as one at the end of the season. Now yawning my brain out from not enough sleep. Silly Kit.
I have started making bread. I need to not forget about it, this time. That would be good.
My feet are cold. I need to do laundry; somehow, I have no socks.
And! Ted has gotten one of his student loans! Soon, he will be a college student for real! And even better, he's quit his stupid job, so as of the 29th he'll be a Man About The House, and a college student! Yay Ted!
Oh hell, I need to run out to the mailbox and send this PFD thingy.
I have just amused myself greatly by making a folder in my filecabinet for 'Rejection letters -- the fools, the fools!' *helpless giggles* It's the little stuff, I tell ya. The little stuff. :)
Hah! I found it! In an envelope I'd entirely overlooked, because it didn't have a return address, and the fact that it had both mine and Deirdre's names on it didn't register on any level. I thought: I'll look at it later, and now, considerably later, as I'm putting the rest of the stuff I took apart back together, I /did/ look, and lo! There it is!
Ok. Tomorrow I need to call the consulate, because they've got Deirdre's city of birth down as being Anchorage, not Soldotna, on her foreign births entry form. Hopefully this won't be too much of an issue and we can get our passports all taken care of.
Tomorrow I *also* need to get the appropriate paperwork for Ted to fill out so that *he* can get *his* citizenship. Yay! Zoop!
*helpless giggles* I just found a note from Deirdre in which she mis-spelled her own name. There is an arrow pointing to the error, and written below the arrow it says, "damn". *helpless laughter*
Accomplished thus far today: uhm. Not a lot. Blueberry pancakes for breakfast, compliments of Ted, thence shopping and discussion of how to build a new bookcase so we could rearrange the living room and make it look more open, thence home-coming where I finished (reading) a book, thence filling out PFD paperwork, thence trying to find the Irish citizenship paperwork, which is not going so well right now. I've managed to unpack a box that's been sitting in our bedroom for nearly a year, and to spread much of the stuff that was in the box into piles around the room (which, if you were wondering, is in no way an improvement), and the slow reclaiming from chaos of the lower two shelves of one of the bookcases in the bedroom. Thus far, however, there's no sign of the paperwork. Fnrt.
OTOH, there will be pork roast for dinner this evening, so clearly life isn't all bad. :)
!!!
I finaled in the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers' contest again! This time with RIGHT ANGLES TO FAERYLAND! I'm all surprised! Wow! COOL!
Of course, I can't go to the conference this year, 'cause it's the weekend of Laura's wedding, but cool anyway! Eee! And argh! And eee! And wow! And stuff like that! Eee!
Damn. I do wish I could go, because Angles is YA, and there are agents who'll be there who rep YA, and so far as I can tell, it's near impossible to break into the YA market without an agent. OTOH, at least I've got a contest credit with this novel now, so maybe that'll provide a little sit-up-and-notice for query letters. Hope springs eternal. :)
Sent a submission off to Fantasy Flight Games to see if they want to hire me to write a novel or some novels for one of their gaming world lines. That would be cool.
That's about the only interesting thing today. :)
Oh! Oh! We went to Freaky Friday last night! It was great! It made me laugh and laugh and laugh. Everybody should go see it! *beam*
Then we came home and watched more Stargate and I made some cookies. I'd only seen about two season 1 Stargate episodes, but there've been a whole rash of them in season 2 that I've seen, about eight in a row now. V. strange. Shaun said, all hopefully, "When's season 3 coming out?" and I said, "It's already out, but if we get it right away, then it'll be FOREVER before we can watch season 4!"
Didn't get up to write this morning. I need to go to bed early tonight, I guess. Fnrt.
I think, she said tentatively, that my back is much improved today, having been popped a lot yesterday.
Ted and I are working our way through Stargate season II quite steadily. Doom, though: Shaun borrowed the first season of 24 from a coworker, and from what I understand, once you start, you can't stop, so we're thinking of doing a 24 Marathon this weekend.
Not much writing going on, though. Gotta get up tomorrow and do that.
Ok, no more kayaking until I've actually rebuilt some muscle strength. It seems I've been going around for the last almost-year in a sort of painless status-quo, but I haven't improved my strength any, and kayaking made that painfully clear, emphasis on the painful. I went to the chiro this morning and had an exciting couple of minutes where I couldn't stand up, when he was done with me. I was really, really afraid I was going to end up like I did last year, bed-ridden and in huge pain. But I lay back down and did some exercises to re-strengthen the muscles, and after a few minutes I was able to stand up and walk. The problem was a combination of the adjustment and the heatlamp that'd made my muscles gooshy enough to adjust, but god, it was really scary. So, leg-lifts tomorrow morning, at the very least. :P
*beam* I have bought an Ursula original, The Tortoise at the Heart of the Mountain. It makes me want to write a story. *beam*
Got up early, but not early enough to write. I did get bread started and clean the kitty litter, which is something. I need to make a chiro appointment, and, um. That's about it so far this morning! :)
SO tired. *laugh* It was an insane weekend, in a great way.
I got up and wrote 1700 words on Saturday morning, and made bread. Dad called and asked if we wanted to go kayaking out on Eklutna Lake, so we did. We spent two hours out on the water, and my hands are still tired today. It was really really fun. :) We want to go out again soon, before 2pm, which is when we got there and apparently is when the wind kicks up. I took pictures! I'll post some ... as soon as I get my photo gallery software working again, sigh.
Then on Sunday we went out to the Lyses' and swam in their lake for TWO HOURS! And had a barbeque and hung out and generally had a really good time. It was *really* fun. God, it was such an amazingly gorgeous weekend! Oh, and Chanti went swimming! She was a little uncertain about the whole water thing at first, but then she really got into it! And she was distressed that I kept swimming way out into the lake, and she wanted to follow me, but oh, poor puppy! She got very tired! And I had an inner tube, so I wasn't nearly as tired! So Ted kept her near shore while I kicked out into the middle of the lake and said hi to Mom and Aunt Eileen, who were putting around the lake in the Lyses' rowboat with the teeny tiny electric motor, and they told me that the lake was 71 degrees and 5 feet deep where I was. :) (They have a little temperature/depth gauge for their boat.)
Starving now. Getting breakfast.
Achy knees. Tired me, in general, which is, I suppose, the price for getting up at 5:30.
We went over to the University Center so I could get my stupid registration stuff taken care of, because they're idiots on the phone, and it turns out they're idiots in person, too, but eventually not only did I get registered (for a Spanish class) but also Ted got some stuff straightened out for /his/ classes this fall. Stupid stupid rat creatures. However, I was /not/ able to fill out a re-uppance for an alumni membership, so I've still got to do that so I can get a gym pass. :P
Got a rejection postcard today from the Curtis Brown Agency, to whom I'd sent a query about Angles. The postcard was generic, but someone had written, in big fat black marker, "I am sorry," on it, and I thought that was charming, at least.
Borisjulie.com no longer sells prints of the covers of the Rogue: Icons miniseries (as shown here, here and here; if anybody knows where I can get copies of these, I'd really appreciate it. Not of the comics, I've got those, but actual prints of the paintings. Sigh.
Up early today! Yesterday I faced the fact that I wake up a lot more easily at 5 or 5:30am than I do at 7 or 7:30 (or 8) and so last night I set my alarm for 5:15, and know what? I woke right up. And then, even more surprisingly, I went ahead and /got/ up.
Consequently, I've written 650 words and made bread already this morning, and it's not even 9am. Well, ok, I'm making bread, because I spent half an hour in the shower instead of staggering downstairs to do stuff, 'cause I figured if I was getting up at 5:30 that I might as well treat it like I would if I was getting up at 7:30. Still. They're accomplishments!
Then I came to work and started checking email, and I had fan mail! *beam* There's nothing that brightens up a morning like fan mail! Someone found IMMORTAL BELOVED and is reading it and enjoying it. Now I wish to write another Methos novel, but I have to finish TB first and I'd really *like* to finish FOOL'S GOLD, as well.
*And*, because I have a *critique group* now (HI SARAH! HI STELLA!) I think that they might be able to help me get through what I feel is my emotional distance from the FG story, so with luck I'll be *able* to finish it! So I think if I accomplish those two things by, uh, *October 31*, heh, maybe I'll let myself do the next Methos book for NNWM. :)
This morning, Image pointed me at this cartoon: (not really a) Non Sequitor.
Okay, so Saturday at the con I had an editor appointment with Anna, and I went to talk to her and I said, "Honestly, I've got nothing to pitch right now. I'd been hoping to be able to talk to you about the book you'd just bought from me, and it was about Wednesday that I went, "Hell, I haven't got anything new to pitch!"" Which was fine with her. So we just talked some -- some about HEART OF STONE, in fact, and actually that was very useful to me -- and she said she thought she'd gone and dug URBAN SHAMAN out of PNH's slushpile to read it. It wasn't appropriate for the paranormal romance line, which, yeah, I knew, and anyway, she didn't tell me what had happened to it /after/ she dug it out of his slushpile, so I emailed her a couple days ago to ask.
It seems to have gotten lost.
Oop.
Well, so I sent her an email copy of it and posted another copy, 'cause, well, this kind of thing happens. It's a bother, but eh. What can I do, really? There's no point in being upset, 'cause at least I found out about it and am able to rectify it.
Anyway, I sent a synopsis for HoS to Avon romance, and they asked for the first 3 chapters, so I got to send 'em that with a 'requested materials enclosed' written on it, and that's always nice. Also sent US to Luna. So. Doo dee doo. That's what's that.
Anna told me during our talk that she thought I needed to work on my character development. Actually *laugh* she said, "I can't believe I'm going to say this, but you need to tell more." And I laughed and said, "Someday I'm going to quote you on that, and make you cringe." She said, "I'm already cringing!" Anyway, so, ok, that's something I should look at. She *also* said, "You're going to get published, whether it's by me or not, you're going to get published."
So I said, "Yes, you're right, I am. I'd love it to be Tor, because Tor's a great house, but even if it's not, I /am/ going to get published." So, y'know, at least we were in agreement on that. :)
I asked -- this was Friday night (see, there's some hope I might get the rest of the con written up!) -- about advances, during some or other part of the talk. See, the thing about advances is that there is no baseline available for SF/F writers. The only, *only* place I've seen on the net that even mentions a first advance is Holly Lisle's site, where she said she got something like $5K for her first novel. Now, I appreciate not wanting to air your finances, but *man*. How's a first time author supposed to know if they're getting screwed or if they're getting a great offer if there's simply no information available? It makes me crazy.
So. I asked, since we were doing a Q&A. And there was hemming and hawing and some talking around the subject, and I thought she wasn't going to answer, which made me crabby, but then she did. A ballpark figure for a first advance -- and I accept that this is 1. a ballpark figure, and 2. possibly more specific to Tor than other houses -- is between $5 and $10 grand, to a first-time SF/F author with no impressive cover quotes. (Someone on her paranormal romance line apparently has a Laurell K. Hamilton cover quote guarantee; that person got a larger advance, f'rex.)
I think this is an *insanely* useful piece of information. I'm *so* glad she answered it!
Ok, well, while I'm at it, some more Friday night stuff. The rest of Anna's talk is a blur, really, and my next real memory is about eight of us sitting around talking to Mistress Aries about what a real dominatrix does for a living, and she told some really truly wonderful stories. This discussion was interrupted by the Tinfoil Hat Creativity Contest, which was brought on by... I think Sarah said something about preventing the aliens from reading our minds, and then Terey went and got tinfoil, and then Marci walked in and Terey said to her, "How many pieces of tinfoil do you want?" and then there was no turning back. I'll get pictures up pretty soon, I promise. :)
*giggle* After about ten minutes we'd all forgotten we were wearing tinfoil hats, so the rest of the evening people kept coming out to do one thing or another, and they'd each stop and stare at us with wonderment and fear. *giggle* It was really funny. :)
We petered out around 11pm, I think, and staggered back to the hotel, where we raided Liz's hotel room because she had Sarah's stuff in her car still, and stood around and talked for half an hour before finally going back and falling down asleep, tud!
Lucy and Chanti have a Mexican standoff going over the sunbeam downstairs. They're both in it, facing one another; Lucy is sitting all prim and proper and eyeing Chanti, who is lying there with absolutely no intention of moving; she didn't even look up when I went downstairs to get breakfast.
:)
I'm beginning to think I might not get the con written up quite the way I want to.
Aberdeen and I went to see Spy Kids 3-D yesterday, in keeping with tradition (we saw the first two together too) and although we'd have been happier if it hadn't been in 3-D (I am not good at focusing on whatever magical point on the screen makes 3-D work properly; two or three times the whole thing slid into 3-D resolution, but mostly it was just off enough to be annoying), we enjoyed it. Also, if you're going to see it, stay through the credits, 'cause there's a cute something at the end. :)
Then we zipped over to Best Buy, because we'd forgotten to this morning, and Ted and I had a small Media Accident and got the first (season?) of Justice League, Daredevil, and the 2nd season of Highlander on DVD. Ted made homemade mac&cheese, and hotdogs for dinner, and we watched more Stargate. All is well.
I will attempt to finish Friday's conference writeup today. :)
Jai came over last night and this morning and she and Emily and I went walking! 6 miles all told, and that means I've broken 150 miles! Woo!
Been a nice, busy day. We walked, after eating some of the Giant Cinnamon Roll that Jai brought over, and when we got home Chanti was POOPED and so lay around panting and sleeping for several hours, which is nice. :) We went to Burger Stop for lunch and wow. OMG. I had the shrimp basket special, and the deep-fried shrimp was *insanely* good. I even got up to tell Tommy how insanely good it was, and next time we go there I am *so* having the shrimp poboy. Wow. *So* good!
Ahem. Right. :) Then there was ALL the running around. We went to Home Depot to get paint remover so I could clean my paintbrush for my shelves, and we got a new shovel 'cause Shaun broke the handle on ours (my parents', actually) and Emily got a board to make a chess board with and then we went to Northway Mall 'cause Shaun wanted to see about ordering carving knives at Packnives, which a friend of Ted's owns, and we had some ice cream, and then went to the Sears Mall where Emily looked at water distillers and I went and got new contacts, 'cause I'm on my last pair. Then we stopped for mushrooms and apples for dinner and came home, where Emily worked on her chess board, I worked on my shelves, cleaned the kitty litter, did laundry and baked cookies while Ted cleaned our bathroom, which needed it. It's beeeooooteeful now.
miles to Rivendell: 150.25
music: Red, The Young Dubliners
Hey! We talked about this cover this weekend! It features a 3-armed romance heroine!
The rest of the week's been pretty low-key, actually. When I got home Sunday evening, Ted had just finished baking a batch of cookies, so we had cookie ice-cream sundaes which were very yummy, and I rattled on about the con for quite a while. We have an Emily for the week, and she's been very sensibly sleeping a lot to catch up on her sleep after her crazy summer. On, let's see. Hm. Monday and Tuesday are apparently an unspeakable blur. I think I made Emily watch Hudson Hawk, which she'd never seen, on Tuesday, and I made bread on Monday. :) Mom and Dad came over for dinner Wednesday, and I told them more about the con. Last night we went to see X2 again, and I *still* adore it, and Nightcrawler is *still* perfect! That's really been about it. It's been a nice week. :)
Friday, Part II
Arriving at the Junker residence is sort of the point at which everything slid into ultra-casual, ultra-cool, ultra-laid-back mode. Oh, good grief, I forgot; Karen said Friday morning that she and Anna Genoese and Melinda whose last name I don't know, who had gone out someplace Thursday night, had a great time, and that Friday Anna'd told her what fun she'd had, and said, "Is there anything I can do for you?" and Karen said, "Publish Catie's books!" O.O Ahem, right, that was a total aside. :)
To the best of my memory, after we got back to Karen's we pretty much sat down for Russell Davis and Anna Genoese's Q&A session on what they as editors wanted. It was enlightening and very interesting -- among other things was Russell's sudden and entertaining rant on, "If you're going to send me a time-travel romance, GIVE ME A REASON THAT THE TIME TRAVEL WORKS!!!" Which made me thing, "Hey, I could write a time travel romance like that...!" *giggle* That whole bit of the conversation sparked/was sparked by the question of what /did/ make time-travel work, and examples of where it didn't. Someone said the Terminator movies, and Anna said, "No, no, don't go there, I *love* the Terminator movies," although she wasn't making excuses for their time travel bits. :)
Man. I wish I hadn't been so darned sleepy Friday night, as this would've been better if I'd written it then, 'cause I'd have more remembery! Oh well.
What I do remember is we broke for dinner, Russell went elsewhere (either to get different food or to do editor appointments, I'm not sure which), and after dinner Anna returned to holding court. I introduced myself to her -- "Hi, I'm Catie Murphy, I wrote HEART OF STONE," and she grinned and shook my head and said, "I know who you are."
Be still my beating heart. Those were wonderful words to hear. :)
Oh! During the Q&A, someone asked how much cover art runs as a matter of course, and Russell answered (somewhere between $3 and $15K), and then he mentioned that there were other, primarily digital, artists whom he'd also worked with, and he mentioned Ursula Vernon by name! I broke into spontaneous applause. :) Woo Ursula! Woo! Hee hee hee!
Someone asked Anna (after dinner) what the process of her selecting a book for her line was. She said -- well, a lot of things. First, although this wasn't necessarily to the same question, she did say that Tor was beginning its paranormal romance line with small steps: assuming all goes according to plan, they'll launch in Oct. 2004 and put out 4 books a year, so at the end of 2006 they'll have put 9 books (because of how they're counting the 'year') out. So competition is very tight, and consequently she's having to turn down books she really loves (ego-boo moment: she gestured to me as she said this; it was really a very flattering section of the con, for me) in order to take Names in the writing field, or people who can get Laurell K. Hamilton cover quotes--in other words, people whom, from a marketing perspective, they're pretty darned sure are going to sell. She said they're hoping that they'll be able to expand the line in the 3rd year, and she said there are books she's seen that she really, really wishes she could take, but since they're looking at three years out for publication, it's just too much time to be making promises or even offers.
Right. Having got all that aside, this is how she selects a book: she gets the synopsis & first 3 chapters (S&3) and reads the first three chapters. If she likes them, she reads the synopsis to see if the writer can get all the way through a story, and then requests the manuscript. When she gets the ms, she then reads a little more of it before handing it off to a First Reader (I can't help hearing that with caps) whose job it is to read the whole ms and tell her if it's worth spending her time reading. I was Johnny-on-the-spot for this whole part of her talk, as she was saying things like, "If I really love the first three chapters *gestures to Catie*," and, "So I gave her manuscript to the First Reader, who said there were some flaws but really loved it and told me I had to read it," and ... jeez. I must be cool. O.O
Anyway. So the First Reader passes the ms back to Anna, and Anna reads it ("Twice," she said, nodding to me, at which point I said, "Are you *sure* you don't want to reconsider?" because, well!), and then she has to decide whether or not to go forward with it and bring it to the Higher Ups to whom she must justify her purchasing decision. In the case of HEART OF STONE, it had some flaws (an assessment I in fact agree with), and because at that point of the process they're pretty much looking for any excuse to reject a ms, HoS got turned down.
Now, ok, look. On one hand, yah, it's got flaws, but they're not flaws that can't be fixed. On the other hand, hearing I was jockeying for one of *9* slots by the end of 2006, and that the first 6 had already been filled, well. Not feeling so bad about the rejection. And on the third hand, acceptance and no publication til 2006 or 2007 would be kind of suckful, too, and so overall, feeling pretty philosophical and even edging towards upbeat about the whole thing.
Ok, this bit has gotten v. long, so I'm going to post it and work more on Friday, Part III. And, y'know, maybe do some other what's-been-happening-this-week updates. :)