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bloody monday
This morning as I was getting dressed, Young Indiana appeared in the doorway and said in his Confessional Voice (which is slightly tragic and solemn), “Mommy…I have something to tell you. I washed the blood off in the sink all by myself.”
Then he proudly displayed his hands, which were red with dried blood, and said, “I was putting my fingers in my nose last night because it was drippy.”
Yes. Yes, it apparently was. And then it was very bloody, to the degree that he brought me to show me the bloodstain on the pillow. I found the bloody smears all over the sheets, foot of the bed, and wall on my own. I had to put him in the shower to get him actually clean, and then he spent some time with a tissue stuffed up his nose to stop the leak that had been re-opened by showering.
Kids are gross.
ytd wordcount: 19,800
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blossoms!
We have wee little apple blossoms on our apple tree! And a wee small rhubarb popping up! Hooray!
Woot! The fifth Walker Papers books has a title! It will be DEMON HUNTS, and I am having a very good time writing it right now. Yay!
Dude. You guys came up with some fantastic casting choices for the Negotiator trilogy. I wish I had about fifteen copies of the anthology to send out, because you did *not* make this an easy choice! I’m going to have to do something cool for the people who participated but didn’t win, because you did such a good job. Maybe I’ll write an Old Races short story just for you guys and not try to publish it anywhere for six months or something.
Okay. *Jeez*. Okay. Overall the best cast, I think, came from Liz McClafferty, who suggested the following:
Margrit Knight – Jasika Nicole
Alban Korund – Josh Holloway
Tony Pulcella- Kirk Acevedo
Eliseo Daisani – Robert Downey Jr.
Vanessa Gray – Winona Ryder
Janx – Johnny Depp
Chelsea Huo – Michelle Yeoh
Grace O’Malley – Katie Sackoff
Malik – Skeet Ulrich
Tariq – Gary Dourdan
Kaimana – Pomaika’i Brown
Cara – Dakota Fanning
Biali – Micky Rourke
Hajnal – Faune Chambers
Ausra – Rashida Jones
Russel Lomax – Gary Sinise
Cameron – Jennifer Garner
Cole – Matt Damon
Sarah – Charlize Theron
Ursula – Kristen Stewart
Kate – Emma WatsonWhew. That was *hard*! I gotta make the next contest easier on *me*!
ytd wordcount: 115,300
miles to Minas Tirith: 181.5 -
posty ms. posts-a-lot
See, I told you. Lots of posts. :p (and I am of course typing at the laptop, so either I’m not suffering that much or I’m really stupid.)
I thought I’d start the weight loss chat room this coming Sunday, the 5th of April. The most widely agreeable time was ‘open at chat room at 9am Pacific and let it run all day’, which translates to running–at least with me as a participant–until about 1pm Pacific/5pm Eastern/10pm Greenwich, so that’s what I’ll do, and I’ll sort of assume that the peak participation time will be around noon Pacific/4pm Eastern/9pm Greenwich.
Totally non-related, I’ve been observing the various bushes and plants and trees we’ve planted, and so far the apple tree and the cherry tree seem to be doing very well, as are the strawberries. Some of the raspberry plants are starting to get leaves, and I have one planter that looks suspiciously like it’s been planted with sticks and nothing else. :) But then, the other day I was thinking in terms of planting and growing things and my brain decided it must be late June, because it was utterly absurd to be planting things in the middle of March. In the land of my people the earth is still buried beneath several feet of snow in the middle of March. :)
Fairly random question, because I haven’t been doing much with kitsnaps anyway, but if it was set up in a more typical blog format, with scroll-down for older entries instead of click-throughs, would that be more appealing? It just struck me that the photoblog I like best is set up that way. Hm.
Oh, right. Extending the PRETENDER’S CROWN contest through the weekend and up til next Tuesday, ’cause people’ve asked if they could have the weekend so they can look at the book again and think harder. I’ve loved some of the ideas that’ve come through…and you don’t have to cast *everybody*! I didn’t mean to make it so hard! :)
Tonight we’re going to the pool and I’m going to start teaching Ted how to swim (as opposed to stay alive in the water, which he’s quite competent at). Hopefully we won’t end up wanting to kill each other. :)
I think I’ll go finish reading a book now.
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transplanting
We stopped and got a little (although larger than I expected) greenhouse today, and now the chives and coriander have been transplanted into peat pots and put into the greenhouse. Coriander seedlings smell just like coriander. That would be nicer if I liked it. :) But we sure have a lot of it, and I suspect that more rather than less will survive the transplanting. I’m a little less certain of the chives, but we’ll see. I left the basil and parsley alone because they don’t look anywhere near studly enough to survive a transplant.
We’re off to Dublin for P-Con, come the morning. My schedule is as follows:
10:00 Sat – Room 2 – Fantasy Quests: Why bother?
What makes characters in a fantasy novel want to go on an adventure? Why not just stay at home?16:00 Sat – Room 2 – High Priests and Priestesses of Love
A panel of self-appointed experts on romantic matters will give advice to the needy (nerdy); during the con, people can anonymously submit their questions on matters of love and romance which the panel can then deal with from an sf viewpoint. Humourous solutions and advice will be the most fertile!11:00 Sun – Room 1 – Illustrating illustration
A panel/workshop/discussion on illustration, comic book and otherwise. Flip charts available for taking flights of sketchiness.15:00 Sun – Room 1 – Pictionary
Two teams of guests strive to out-draw their opponents in what has become something of a traditional battle for P-Con.16:00 Sun – Room 1 – Mutiny on the Phoenix
An open forum panel for guests to recount interesting/amusing incidents experienced in their life as a writer. (Modelled on the pirate hijacking of a panel at Mecon in 2007.)I’m also going to be doing a “meet the author” session sometime during the weekend, during which time I expect to have copies of my books (but not, sadly, the comics) for people to buy. Er, it’s rather short notice, but if there’s anything anybody’s specifically after leave me a note here and I’ll make sure to keep a copy on hand for you. Oh, and I have the final WALKING DEAD manuscript sitting here. Think I should bring it to auction it off for the con’s fundraiser?
It’s going to be a lovely weekend. I’m looking forward to seeing people.
miles to Minas Tirith: 140.5
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bits and bobs
If you haven’t ordered a copy of A FANTASY MEDLEY, which has an Old Races story by me along with stories by Kate Elliott, Robin Hobb and Kelley Armstrong (I still can’t help going ‘one of these things is not like the others’ when I see my name in that lineup), here is an important bit of information from Subterranean Press:
Headed into the out of print realm soon is A Fantasy Medley (edited by Yanni Kuznia), which hasn’t even started shipping yet! As I write this, we’re down to our last couple hundred copies of the trade edition, and the last 35-40 copies of the limited edition. It will only take a few wholesaler/large online retailer order to take care of the trade edition, and we expect the limited to go out of print about the same time.
You can place your order here, if’n you want one.
Various body parts–shoulders, heads, backs–are doing better here than they were last week. I’m still not healed sufficiently to swim, and sort of gloomily anticipate that I won’t get back to the pool until after P-Con, which is coming up fast. (And I just got an email from Forbidden Planet which says that Gail Simone, who is virtually the only woman writing major Big Two titles, is doing a signing at Forbidden Planet on Friday evening at the same time the Chapters signing is going on with me, Juliet, Oisín, and Charlie over on the other side of the river. I don’t actually have anything of hers I’d like signed, but I’d like to meet her and tell her I’d like to be her when I grow up. Oh, hm, she’s signing from 6-7 and we’re done at 6:30. Maybe if I rush out of there like a rushing thing…)
We got a little box of seeds to grow coriander, chives, parsley and basil. Saturday evening I noticed the coriander (which had only been planted about five days earlier) had gotten tall enough that the little greenhouse-effect box for growing them in was too short, and their little heads were bent over. So I rigged up a new greenhouse with plastic wrap and straws, and they’ve literally doubled in height. If they keep it up at this rate I’m going to have to build a taller-still greenhouse tonight. I think it’s all very nifty, for, as you know, food does not grow on trees in the land of my people. :) And the strawberry plants are getting new stalks and the apple and cherry trees are leafing, so it’s all quite splendid. Doesn’t take much to make me happy. :)
…though I’d be happier yet if there wasn’t a fierce wind blowing spatters of rain all over the place. The past week has been gorgeous, so I’m sure I shouldn’t complain, but pah, I complain anyway. Away, foul rain! Begone, cruel wind! And on that note, I think, away with me, too. I’m going to go finish reading a book that already has a cover, and then I think I’ll read one of the several I’ve gotten lately that doesn’t.