The software appears to have "helpfully" corrected for time zones. Looking at the reservation/confirmation from the airline, I am actually landing in Madison at 7, which means I will not be in time for the Room of One's Own reception/reading, and may be in the hotel lobby looking for dinner companions tomorrow night. (That 7 is assuming all goes well at O'Hare, but even if it does I will need to collect my luggage and then get to the Concourse.)

Cross-posted from Dreamwidth (http://redbird.dreamwidth.org/1386615.html), where there are comments. I welcome comments here or there (OpenID and "anonymous" are fine if you don't have a DW account).

So, yeah, everyone's talking about Amazon's Kindle Worlds program, which basically allows people to write and sell fan fiction as Kindle ebooks.

Now before you get all excited, it's only Alloy Entertainment allowing this so far, and only for certain properties (Gossip Girl, Vampire Diaries, and Pretty Little Liars). No doubt more publishers and intellectual properties will become available, but it's not like Amazon has just declared open season for publishing fan fiction.

Lots of professional authors have already weighed in: John Scalzi is preliminarily wary. Jim C. Hines is pondering it. Malinda Lo is freaking out.

So, a few things to keep in mind.

First of all: the properties made available so far are already what are called "packaged works": they're basically work-for-hire product. It's not like Amazon is (or could) throwing the gates open for you to start publishing Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings fanfic. Only the IP holder (i.e., the author) can allow that.

I am guessing that a few authors will give permission, and the majority will say "Hell, no."

Now, of course some people fear what Amazon's long game is. Amazon has a history of undercutting and commoditizing things in order to seize market share, so I've seen speculation that Amazon will start requiring authors to agree to a "fan fiction clause" in work published by Amazon, and that this will slowly exert pressure on all publishers to bow to this new model.

I think that's pretty unlikely, because I think it's pretty unlikely that this "commercial fan fic" will ever become a big thing.

What I do think will happen is that there will be a handful of success stories, ala Fifty Shades of Gray. Amongst the vast sea of crap that will be published, much like self-published original fiction now, a few will become enormously popular bestsellers, probably for reasons as inexplicable to most of us as 50SoG.

And the catch there is that Kindle World's contract grants the original license holder all rights to use your creations, without compensation.

In other words, let's say I was able to publish my Alexandra Quick series on Kindle Worlds (which I can't, because J.K. Rowling and Scholastic have not jumped on this bandwagon and I think it's enormously unlikely that they will). And let's say Alexandra Quick became the hottest thing since 50SoG. (Hey, I can dream, can't I?) Under the terms of Kindle Worlds, Amazon Publishing could sell the rights to Warner Brothers to make a series of Alexandra Quick movies, and no one has to pay me one thin dime. I get paid only for my novels, not for any derivative works. At all. I don't really own my characters.

And, the thing is, I think that's fair, more or less. Because I already don't own my characters. Because it's fan fiction. If I want to write Alexandra Quick novels that I can hypothetically sell the movie rights to, then I'd need to "file the serial numbers off" and write them as original novels, not as officially sanctioned fan fiction. If you decide to jump into the Kindle Worlds fan fiction pool, you do so knowing that you are writing fan fiction and you don't own it. Don't like it? Write something that's not fan fiction.

The other big objection I've seen to this is that it violates the "gift economy" culture of fandom. I.e., it's just plain wrong to sell fan fiction, because it's wrong because.

As far as I'm concerned, if you've been given the creator's blessing, it's not wrong.

Will this see a bunch of people no longer posting free stories on fanfiction.net because they're trying to sell it on Kindle Worlds instead? Oh, I'm sure some will try. Keeping in mind that it's only ever going to be a very small subset of properties that are allowed on Kindle Worlds (and I do not think that subset will ever include Harry Potter, Twilight, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek, anything Marvel or DC, you get the idea), even among those fandoms, plenty of people will still write stuff for free. There will never be a shortage of free fan fiction. And the vast majority of authors who try to sell their fan fiction will be horribly disappointed if they're thinking they're going to make any significant amount of money at it.

Alexandra Quick as commercial fan fic?

See above for all the reasons why this will not happen. But hypothetically, let's say J.K. Rowling shocked the world by saying "Sure, go ahead and sell your Harry Potter fan fiction."

Would I do it?

Sure.

Not to make money (Amazon decides the pricing, and I wouldn't expect to see significant sales, especially since all the AQ novels are already available for free), but for the increased exposure, to give Alexandra Quick a much wider audience. (And yes, taking the risk that someday Alexandra Quick might become a blockbuster movie franchise and I wouldn't get paid. Hey, I would happily take that risk! :D)

I would put all the AQ novels up for free on Amazon and Smashwords now, if it were legal. I imagine most fan fiction writers would. And if that led to people saying "Hey, this Inverarity is a pretty good writer, maybe I should buy his original fiction..." Well, I'm sure that's the thinking of a lot of writers who will be flooding into Kindle Worlds.

I will not, however, be writing any Vampire Diaries fan fiction.

Poll #1914940 Kindle Worlds
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 1

What do you think of the Kindle Worlds program?

Tags: fandom, poll, soapbox, writing

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/22/muslim-leaders-pray-at-auschwitz-during-a-holocaust-awareness-visit/

....and then sometimes, people surprise you. When he linked his own
history with persecution of Jewish people, I was pretty startled....but it
fits.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/22/anti-abortion-leader-faces-criticism-after-comparing-rape-to-car-accidents/

http://gawker.com/meet-the-hero-mom-who-single-handedly-stopped-the-londo-509386190

What am I reading now?

Anasazi America, by David E. Stuart. Yes, still. It's good, but slow, and I have been interrupting myself. The book promises to combine archeology and history, but I'm still in the early chapters, which are necessarily archeological (pre-dating any written records from that part of North America). The book is talking about climate, changes in tools, food sources, settlement patterns, and economics (in a large sense), and the author promises to draw connections between the collapse of the Anasazi civilization and our own time and circumstances.

King of Morning, Queen of Day by Ian Macdonald. Too early in the book to have much to say about it, except that I can entirely understand some of the reasons the characters are annoyed with each other, without anyone actually doing wrong.

What have I read recently?

Aunt Lulu, by Daniel Pinkwater. A cheerful, silly picture book that I reread after spotting it while unpacking. A librarian, sled dogs, and some fine illustrations.

An Excellent Mystery, by Ellis Peters. Reread of a Brother Cadfael that I asked the library for because I didn't recognize the title. Good, but I think I've had enough of these for a while, even if the King County Library System has the middle of the series (the first several, and the last few, are relatively easy to find).

The Highest Frontier, by Joan Slonczewski. I wanted to read something of hers before Wiscon, where she is one of the guests of honor (the other, Jo Walton, is a friend of mine and a writer whose work I like and have read just about all of). This is a coming-of-age adventure about a bright girl from a very political family set about a century in the future, in a world badly affected by climate change, with eerily familiar politics even though the anti-reality forces . Jenny Ramos Kennedy is descended from two presidents, and her family takes for granted that she will go into politics too, but in the meantime she's playing varsity zero-gee sports and being awakened to take EMT/first responder emergency calls.

The story is set mostly in a space habitat, with chunks in virtual reality ("toyspace") and in Somers, N.Y. A kudzu-covered Somers, with a very different fauna and ecosystem than is found there now. It's as plausible a choice as any, but there's something odd about that level of "I've been there" not-really-familiarity for a bit of suburb. The book is fast-paced, the world-building is mostly convincing, and I didn't think the ending quite lived up to the first nine tenths of the book.

What am I going to read next?

Likely something random I download for the kindle (I have a long flight ahead of me) followed by something from the Wiscon dealer's room. Or maybe back to the library stack. [I may drop this section, given that its predictive value has been lower than that of just rolling a die.)

Cross-posted from Dreamwidth (http://redbird.dreamwidth.org/1386472.html), where there are comments. I welcome comments here or there (OpenID and "anonymous" are fine if you don't have a DW account).

Tags: books, reading

This is the stuff I use to do my nails with! And even clumsy as I am, it comes out great. My nails are short so I do the cut-in-half trick in the tutorial for double the manicure for the money, and I can find Sally Hansen Salon Effects online for half what they cost at Walgreens. I've tried some cheap knock-off brands with weak results, but Nail Fraud is also excellent and comes in a neat black and silver houndstooth.

Sunday I was struck down by a migraine , but still managed to teach my class on Travel Foods of the Fur Trade Era (1800-1840). I had seven students plus two kibitzers who hadn’t signed up but came along anyway. The pemmican and dried beef were tasted and pronounced “interesting”, which is par for the course. (Not jerky, dried beef: innocent of any seasoning, even salt. The modern palate isn‘t used to it.) I also showed a sample of "portable soup" and demonstrated that the hardtack we made was done by banging it hard on the counter, raising a laugh at the resulting woodlike “knock, knock.” (The ‘tack doesn’t break when you do this either.)

I didn’t take any classes after that, instead choosing to lie down quietly in my tent to try to sleep off the migraine. (Partial success, it eased up some but didn’t totally go away.) I got up again in time for the raffle drawing (for a brazier and a collector’s doll) and awards ceremony.

It turns out that I took third place in the Seneca run and second AND third place in the canning contest! I won a bar of homemade herbal soap, an enamel percolator coffeepot, and a lovely beaded-leather neck pouch as a consequence. For my door prize I seized on a soapmaking kit with a book on the process, various ingredients (including some quite expensive essential oils) and a bar of the soap we made Saturday.

Breaking camp during a migraine attack was interesting in an emesis-laced sort of way. (Bending over for tent stakes is NOT a good thing.) I had little to pack up, though, and got all those yards of wet canvas stuffed into the car with everything else, including the unexpected and generous gift of a wooden chair.

The canvas is draped over most of the front porch right now, drying.

It's fun even in the rain, but I'm glad it's only once a year. I missed my Grey.

I'm feeling: cold

Where's the MRAs? They're so concerned about false accusations that they assume they're all false. And they make it clear, for example, that if one of them is a rape jury, they will acquit.

So José Canseco just accused a woman of accusing him of rape.

He tweeted her name, phone number, photograph, and health club's address to his 600, 000 followers. LVPD says there's no such charge, to their knowledge. So Canseco is inviting 600, 000 people to harass this woman, while making his own accusation. This is basically the threat that a hostile society holds over womens' heads.

But I doubtbthe MRAs will come to the rescue. After all, they've spent a fair amount of time doxxing women, only for it to become apparent that at least one was a completely different person from the one they accused her of being. Paul Elam just couldn't quite apologize.

If anything happens to this woman, we'll know who to blame.

http://jezebel.com/ok-unless-she-is-under-18-whats-the-problem-509378701

.....
Jose Canseco tweets the name, phone number, photos, and address of her
health club to his 600, 000 followers....

Accusing her of accusing HIM of rape.

I'm sure MRAs will be all over this, right? Right?!

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/22/west-point-sergeant-accused-of-secretly-filming-female-cadets/

I completely got my money's worth of enjoyment out of this series. By the time I was approaching book nine, I didn't want it to end. But the ending was very satisfying.

There was one event in particular which was completely surprising, yet meticulously set up over ten books. There was another, also surprising yet completely set up, which caused me to email Buymeaclue a message whose non-spoilery text consisted of "OH MY GOD!!!!! Also, just opened the part where it shifts POVs and OH MY GOD I KNOW WHERE HE IS."

Now I want to read the whole thing over from the beginning. Due to the unusual structure, it will probably feel like an entirely new experience.

You can buy the whole shebang on e-book at a discount ($30 for the equivalent of four books), or in paper. However, the paper editions are in four volumes, and only two are out. You will probably end up with a mutant half-paper, half-e-book set if you attempt the latter.

http://www.blindeyebooks.com/rifter/

I mentioned before that the series reminded me of P. C. Hodgell. By the end, it also reminded me of the Fullmetal Alchemist anime (first series.) In both, nearly all the seemingly unrelated side stories and apparently unimportant minor characters turn out to be integral to the story as a whole. Also the unusual mix of a dark world with a magic system involving some major body horror, with funny moments and a lot of very likable and even idealistic characters who don’t (necessarily) get crushed under the author’s boot.

( Read more...Collapse )

These books just kept getting better and better, from an intrigueing but somewhat rough start. I’m sure they will reward re-reading.

Crossposted to http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1109191.html. Comment here or there.

Tags: author: hale ginn, genre: portal fantasy, lgbtq

Am I the only one who finds it hilarious that Amazon prohibits porn, violence, and presumably incest in VAMPIRE DIARIES fic?

What did you just finish reading?
I finished Anna Cowan's Untamed. Review copy, so I'll save it for review.

Skimmed Iron Man 3 Prelude, aka What Jim Rhodes Was Doing During The Avengers.

There is also a mostly pointless comics retelling of IM2; only "mostly" because it is nice to see Tony customizing War Machine for Rhodey and Rhodey's first flight, which are major plot holes in the movie. On the plus side, there is also a lot less Vanko and Hammer than the movie, but on the minus side, there is a lot less RDJ.

It also includes the first issue of Iron Man: Extremis, which I assume is massively confusing for people not already familiar with the comicsverse. I often recommend Extremis as an introductory work, but including one chapter in a book focused on the Cinematic Universe, without any prior indication that this is from a different continuity, is probably not the best way to pitch it.

Milestone's Static series is a lot less interesting when Dwayne McDuffie isn't writing it. There is an After School Special about black anti-Semitism/white Jews benefiting from racism as an institution. I have just hit the storyline where one of Virgil's friends comes out as gay and the other boys in the friends group do not react well. All the social justice storylines are so clunky and well-meant! I cannot help but be fond of them.

What are you currently reading?
Still slogging through Kerry Greenwood's Medea. Very much a war of the sexes book.

What are you planning to read next?
I need to reread "A Cyborg Manifesto." If the latest Wiscon Chronicles volume is out in ebook, I'll probably read it on the plane ride home, because I usually do.

Tags: books, books: romance, fandom: conventions: wiscon, sequential art, sequential art: comics

Sometimes happy dreams are just happy... and sometimes they're cruel.

I'm feeling: envious

( spoilersCollapse )

Tags: fandom:bleach

One of the former original idols, variety star and animal lover Lee Hyori is finally back with a monochrome vid 'Miss Korea' from her [huge] new album 'Monochrome'. It's not her usual pop-dance fare at all. What is it? See and listen :)

The album is fully of country, jazzy, rock-n-rolly and rocky tunes, and whatnot. It's not k-pop at all. I've never expected Hyori to move into the indie territory, but even doing this she tears through the charts. I usually want my k-pop to sound exactly like k-pop -- in the end, I like k-pop, right? But I still picked Hyori's two title songs and some more. It's like a big take on Western music and specifically, movie music. Pretty interesting as a whole.

Also, as a note from a shallow spectator: my, does she clean up well! :)

Lee Hyori - Miss Korea

Tags: k-pop, music pimping, music:k-pop various, vids

A sequel to the Ozark trilogy, in which the author introduces the main character from her other sci-fi series to Planet Ozark.

ROGUE TELEPATH!

The Communipaths have traced a mind message of incredible strength to a seemingly empty sector of space, and now Tri-Galactic Federation agent Coyote Jones must find an invisible planet and bring back the unknown telepath who threatens to disrupt the entire Communipath system.

Bursting through a Spell of Invisibility and straight into Brightwater Kingdom on the planet Ozark, Coyote discovers a realm ruled by a iron-willed young woman named Responsible — perhaps the very telepath he seeks. But on this world where Magicians of Rank can call up a storm or cure a wounded and unwelcome offworlder with equal ease, will Coyote's psience or Ozark's spells prove the stronger?

( Ozark magic vs. intergalactic telepaths. Fun, charming, and awfully damn silly.Collapse )

Verdict: This is not a book you'd want to read as a stand-alone. If you have not read the Ozark Trilogy first, and preferably a couple of the Coyote Jones books as well, then Yonder Comes the Other End of Time is going to seem awfully silly and nonsensical. If you have read those books, then this book is still a little silly, but you'll enjoy it more.

Also by Suzette Haden Elgin: My review of The Ozark Trilogy.

---

My complete list of book reviews.

Tags: books, fantasy, reviews, science fiction, suzette haden elgin

The next day I got up around OMG-IT’S-EARLY, or 6 am. (Considering Grey works the swing shift and we usually go to bed around three AM, this is a major shift.) I lit a fire by cheating and using matches because it kept @#$% raining and everything was damp. After coffee and an egg, I felt more human and went to register for classes. I chose to take a class on soapmaking, taught by a good friend of mine, and a seminar on the colonial custom of the quilted petticoat and its construction. There was a breakfast buffet as well, featuring fruit, bread, biscuits, a couple coffeecakes and some storebought doughnuts, so I supplemented my egg with some fruit and biscuits.

Saturday the class offerings included a rifle class for new shooters, but I didn’t feel the need since I am already competing with Dead Center. The evening buffet was just as sumptuous as the previous day, with the notable additions of some Scotch eggs, herbed cheese curds, a nameless but tasty casserole of chicken and potatoes, peanut butter fudge, and a chocolate cake covered in white and dark chocolate shavings. There was no Dutch Oven contest this year, instead a Canning competition was instituted. I entered a jar of raspberry jam and a jar of peach chutney.

The usual council fire was somewhat inhibited by the constant showers, so most people socialized at one another’s tents, gravitating to the ones with awnings. (Mine doesn’t.) I set my own soaked mocs aside and borrowed a pair from the common pool known as Grandma’s Closet, but those quickly soaked through as well.

I entered the Seneca Run again this year, which had a boobytrap in it: everyone had to FIRST don a pair of oversized pants, then finish the run while still clad in them. The rest was fairly standard: shoot one arrow at target, pack a blanket into gunnysack, shoot rifle at target, stack wood, throw ‘hawk at target (this part was out in the rain, the rest was under the roof of the firing line), run back to starting line and shuck pants off. Time. I garnered some admiration by choosing to do so barefoot (my soaked moccasins were more of a hindrance than a help) even at a run over gravel.

The evening went much the same way, due to unrelenting precipitation.

I'm feeling: busy

A doggie runs into the foster mother who saved him from certain death.

I don't usually post Japanese releases of Korean groups but I found this one worth a mention. Because the new Japanese release of Girls' Generation sounds like Wonder Girls in too many elements, only more cutesy -- I must say 'again'; remember 'Twinkle'? The vid looks too much like WG's 'Like This' too. Did SME producers lost their creativity or something?

Girls' Generation - Love&Girls

Tags: k-pop, music pimping, music:k-pop girl groups, vids

Since I am still 20 years away from being able to even consider retirement (and even then I probably won't be able to afford to retire), and since I've been having so much angst about my current job, I have been thinking about what I want to do with the rest of my life, or at least the next 20-odd years.

Unfortunately, taking the training to be a legal secretary didn't help me at all. All I discovered was that I hate the job and it pays diddly squat. I make more per year working for only six to eight months at my current job than I would make working 12 months as a legal secretary. Even if I never bought any fancy electronics, I'd still need money for vet bills, and those things can add up very quickly. I've already spent a lot of money on poor Rosie kitty and that's without her needed tooth extraction.

Anyway, since the federal government already paid for my legal secretary training that I never used, it's not very likely they're going to pay for me to train for anything else, and I am not even sure what I would want to be trained in. (The problem is they pay for only a full set of courses, rather than paying for one course, like the medical terminology course I would need to take to qualify as a medical transcriber.)

What I really want to do, though, is learn how to counsel people with autism/Asperger's and the parents of people (kids and adults) with autism/Asperger's. I know very little about children to begin with, autistic or not autistic. Every time I make a public appearance anywhere, I start getting questions and e-mails from people asking me for advice about their autistic kids. I know nothing about autistic kids. I also have the Aspergian tendency toward bluntness when talking to parents as well as to my fellow Aspie adults, and while that might not bother the Aspies so much (sometimes with Aspies it's necessary to be blunt, as I know from experience we have more trouble understanding people who are indirect) it does bother the parents.

Right now if I get questions from fellow Aspies I can usually answer them from my own personal experience or from the books I've read, and I can also recommend books and websites to them. With parents, if they live in town, I usually refer them to the lone therapist in Victoria who specializes in working with the families of autistic kids as well as with autistic adults. But I always wish that I could be of more help to people. Unfortunately, if I started answering questions by e-mail whenever people asked, I would be providing a service for free that someone else is charging money for, which wouldn't be fair for her. I'd also be giving up my sometimes sparse free time without getting paid.

Yesterday I found myself giving advice to a fellow adult Aspie on one of the Facebook pages I belong to. She was complaining that her only friends are her parents' friends, and it was "out of the question" for her to make her own friends. She said she'd tried to make friends but that when she met new people in the past they tried to take her outside her (quite literal) comfort zone -- a few city blocks that she won't go outside of. I told her that if she really did want to make friends, she would have to try to expand her comfort zone, if only a little bit at a time. One problem she has with her parents' friends is that none of them want to talk about her personal perseverations. She likes to talk about guns, and they don't. I suggested she join a gun club or other organization for gun enthusiasts if she likes to talk about guns. She said she asked one of her mother's friends about menopause because, as she herself is now over 40, it is something she figures she will experience before long. Her mother shushed her. I told her that menopause is a very personal subject best discussed in private, not in front of other people, and that not everyone wants to talk about.

Now my questions is, is there any way I can make money doing this kind of thing, giving this kind of advice, even if it's only a couple of hours here and there? It's not that I dislike giving free advice. It's just that I do need money and this is something that I can do and that I keep getting asked to do.

Tags: asperger, asperger's, asperger's syndrome

Well, the title more or less says it all, but let me say it again.

We want to do an omnibus edition of Digger. You guys asked (repeatedly!) and we think it’s a great idea!

The downside (and the reason we haven’t done it already) is that hardcover omnibuseseses require a big chunk of cash up front—we’re talking a big print job here, on the order of the Bone omnibus edition, and that does not run cheap. (Plus, of course, while people keep asking, we’re talking a spendy beast here and we want to make sure there’s enough interest to justify doing it!) Plus, if we get a LOT of interest, we can do all kinds of neat extras, like color inserts and cover embossing and extra stories and giant wombat balloons in the Macy’s Day Parade!*

So, in a couple of weeks, we’ll be Kickstartering! And we will have all kinds of neat goodies for sponsors (postcards! pins! pickaxes!) and also all kinds of mildly absurd goodies for sponsors (I believe at one level, I name a tree in the yard after you and put a little plaque with your name on it…) so watch this space for more information! You’ll be the first to know!

 

(Also, hey, Digger got nominated for the Mythopoeic Award, which is neat, too!)

 

 

*One of these things is a bald-faced lie.

Originally published at Tea with the Squash God. You can comment here or there.

Tags: publishing

Damn, I did it wrong.

Having one of those "why bother" days. With... almost everything. I need things at the store... glue for art. Then I need to frame stuff. Also need groceries. And after all this I have to manage to, you know, pay rent and bills. With WHAT money, you ask? No idea. Might skip on the groceries. Tempted to not bother with art because it's not like anyone's going to buy it anyway. Kind of just want to say "fuck it" to everything - I won't, probably. But it's tempting. And it's rooted in money anxiety, of course.

I'll probably use my birthday money for the framing - it won't cover all of it, but it'll help. Bleh. Gotta spend money to make money, blah blah - the problem comes when you don't have the initial money to spend. :P

I'm feeling: stressed

http://gawker.com/oklahoma-tornado-survivor-finds-missing-dog-during-live-509025167

http://gawker.com/zach-galifianakis-red-carpet-date-a-woman-he-saved-fr-509035123

.....well, damn, I guess he's not that bad after all.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/21/oklahoma-sen-coburn-tornado-relief-funds-must-be-offset-with-spending-cuts/

Beast has done yet another wonderful OST song. That makes me really happy. (This is not an official vid; it's fanmade from the drama)

Beast & BtoB - Bye Bye Love - 남자가 사랑할 때 OST – Part.4

Tags: k-pop, music pimping, music:beast/b2st, music:btob, vids

...the death toll in Oklahoma is at 91 now. 20 of them are children.....

( Read more...Collapse )

Tags: hawaii five-0

And today has improved. Judah helped me sort through everything and get packed, then made me gluten-free biscuits and sausage gravy. <3

"Bugger that for a game of soldiers"

Appropriate for a wedding speech y/n?

(I think I already know the answer. I've already censored "being a woman's hard work, I can't wait to go back to normal". Why won't anyone let me I let myself have any fun.)

Remember how when I was at uni, you could always tell I had an essay due because I'd suddenly get really active on LJ and you'd get a lot of dashed-off posts generally relating to the matter in hand? Looks like weddings bring out the student in me. Though this time I hope not to pull an all-nighter.

(Also, I have made it within a fortnight of my wedding and I still have no particularly positive icon about love. I really should have rectified that one, ooh, 6 years ago?)

I'm feeling: belligerent
I hear: Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence

Well, here's the tale, divided up by day.

I absolutely hate dealing with wet canvas. Let’s get that out of the way right now. It’s heavy, the smell gets old after a few hours or DAYS of constant wet-canvas-smell, and let’s not talk about the mildew issues. D-:<

However!

Much fun was had by all.

The first day I arrived at ten-thirty, just in time for registration. I signed up for a class on making quill pens and then had a couple hours’ break, during which I ate some lunch, got dressed (1837-Plains-type tradecloth dress & accessories) and set up my camp. (Wedge tent, iron firepit, folding table, wood & canvas folding cot, and a Rubbermaid tub of clothing which I carefully covered with a blanket so as to remain Primitive.) I then got “drafted” into a class on butter churning that was under-registered (only one student, so I sat in on it anyway).

Later in the afternoon I had a class on weaving (a variation on fingerweaving) before it was time to prep for the nightly potluck. I brought Bourbon-Glazed Apples En Brochette, a recipe of my own invention that involves simmering quartered apples in a syrup of brown sugar, butter and bourbon until they’re almost done, then threading them onto skewers to glaze them over an open fire.

Other offerings included potato salad, fruit, pasta salad, broccoli salad, chili, cornbread, barbecued pork ribs, barbecued beef ribs, meatballs in tomato sauce, chicken ala king, corn and quinoa casserole, sourdough French bread, biscuits, fettucini with Italian sausage, stewed chicken, chorizo stirfry with peppers and onions, a plate of pickles including pickled okra (one of my favorites), brownies, cheesecake, dump cake, apple cake, chocolate bread pudding, German chocolate cake, lemon cake, carrot-and-zucchini cake, oatmeal cookies, and a very boozy trifle made with strawberries and pineapple marinated in brandy.

I went visiting some before bed, being careful to bring extra candles in my possible bag so as not to have to fumble around in the dark back at my own camp. I brought the Ginormous Bedroll of Doom on the premise that it's better to have it and not need it, etc., and used one wool blanket and one quilt underneath with four quilts and one wool blanket on top. I was perfectly warm and comfy, though a cot has its drawbacks.

I'm feeling: content

( We, the Vast UnderclasssCollapse )

Many thanks to fiddlingfrog who posted that OMNI magazine is now available for free at the Internet Archive. There is much that is awesome in that trove, and I'll be unearthing some of it. But the crowning issue, as far as I am concerned, was February 1986. It was the issue which introduced me to the word "tetrodoxin", the concept of ethnobotany, and the existance of the Exploratorium. And the jewel in the crown was a short story, which remains one of my all-time favorite works of fiction. Neither SFF nor magic realism, it introduced me to -- though it never used the word and I only figured it out later -- Surrealism.

I reproduce it here in full.

The Man Who Wasn't There
by William Kotzwinkle

Idle one evening and dully curious, I chanced to turn over a painting that hung upon the wall of the rooming house. Wrapped around the wire was a little scroll of paper. I opened it and read: Now you have met me/ Can you forget me?/ I offer you a chance.

In the bottom corner of the paper was the name of a tramp steamer and its next port of call. I rolled the little scroll back up, but instead of placing it back upon the wire, I slipped it in my pocket, as a souvenir.

I thought no more of the matter, but fate, or chance, had me on that tramp steamer when next it sailed. It was a voyage of several weeks, and I'd been staring at the empty springs of the bunk above me for many nights and mornings before I noticed there was a tiny figure tucked inside the coils---a figure of a unicorn, cleverly shaped out of folded paper. Examining it, I suddenly knew that it had been made by the man whose note I carried. I'd followed his thoughts---to the unicorn, mythical creature never seen.

I made inquiries; no one onboard, from cabin boy to captain, recalled a passenger with the habit of folding paper into little animals. But when we docked in port, ( I had not forgotten him.Collapse )

Tags: lit, surrealism

Today I am packing for Chicago/Wiscon, because tomorrow I am flying to Chicago. Stressors non-related to my trip have settled down to the point where I am capable of bursting into tears randomly.

Me: "Tonight was good!"
Judah: "...you were crying ten minutes ago."
Me: "I am capable of crying. After this week, that is significant progress."

But today. Packing. A million tiny meltdowns. I don't like being away from home. And it's a big dressy event, and my genderfluidity means I won't have the vaguest idea today what I'll want to wear on Saturday. Last year I felt dysphoric in dresses the whole weekend and ended up not wearing a single one of the, what, four?, that I'd packed. So I need dresses/skirts, jeans & t-shirts, cargo shorts & tank tops, what?

Also this involves hauling everything out of everywhere and trying it on and being upset at myself that most things don't fit the way I want them to. Being sick means I'm behind on toning away my winter pudge.

But hey, I found a swimsuit that fits. By dumping an entire drawer of random stuff on my bed.

I go step by step so I don't get too overwhelmed.

When I was crying last night, I told Judah that I haven't had a day when I was not in crisis mode since maybe early February. I just need a week off. This won't be that. The earliest I can possibly get that is mid-June. But maybe this week will be a good reset.

I still don't know what to pack for plane knitting.

Back to it.

WARNING: Biological Icky Bits Ahead!

Guess what I found!?

This peculiar devil is the larval form of the American Carrion Beetle! How cool is that? (They feed on mushrooms and dead bugs as well as rotting meat, so I hasten to assure you that I do not, in fact, have dead bodies rotting in the woods. At least, to the best of my knowledge.)

Spring sprung and was promptly batted aside by summer, so it’s hot and humid in the garden, and I am trying to stay ahead of the stiltgrass with copious amounts of mulch, because the flamethrower is questionable in a dry pine wood and would also take out all my nice jewelweed that has established so marvelously.  Thinking of trying to fight it by transplanting in Virginia knotweed, which is an aggressive loon of a plant, but native, attractive, and host to a couple of butterfly species. (I have the variegated form, “Painter’s Palette,” which comes true from seed and boy, is there a lot of seed!)

Other than that, everything is blooming, the pollinators are out in force, I had a Zebra Swallowtail show up the other day (an uncommon butterfly in this neck of the woods!) and the pond is full of frogs and predacious diving beetles. On the downside, the weird cold/hot/cold/hot weather sent most of the spring veggies straight to bolting, so I got no daikons, some very sad beets, and the tomatoes are already starting to come in. Lost a bunch of peppers, too. Sigh. But the cucumbers and squash are happy, and I am holding out hope that the peas will produce a batch before the heat exhausts them. (A lot of local farmers just gave up and plowed the peas under. Can’t blame ‘em. This has been demented weather.)

Craw-Bob is still in residence. Haven’t gotten a good look at him, but we’ve got the night vision cameras and just need to get them working with the house network. Mostly he’s a flash of movement into the hole as I go by.

The Patio That Shall Not Be Named has been graveled, sanded, mortared, and now needs bricks. I’m traveling at the end of the week, but hold out hope of getting it done before June rolls around. (All productivity must be crammed into this month, because June is solid travel and July and August will be miserably hot.)

I had a bit of a wildlife mystery this morning. Was going out to feed the birds and found—there’s no other way to say it—a pile of viscera in the middle of the path. Somebody had left their guts in a neat pile on the ground.

Being me, I of course immediately poked them with a stick. Yup. That’s guts, all right.

Guts and….earthworms?

For whatever weird reason, there were a bunch of dead earthworms in the pile as well.

I wracked my brain—had something vomited and lost guts and earthworms together? Was this some kind of weird version of an owl pellet?—until I realized that the earthworms were from INSIDE the guts. Our deceased gut-owner had been out eating earthworms, and had quite a solid meal, then something jumped him, eviscerated him, and presumably ate the tasty bits. (I would have thought the viscera WERE tasty bits, but apparently somebody was picky.)

My guess is that the victim was a large frog, but I’ve got no idea what the killer was. I tossed the remains out of dog range—hopefully either Craw-Bob or the carrion beetles will find it and start the clean-up process.

So that’s all the excitement around here at the moment. Guts! Bugs! Mulch! THRILLS! CHILLS! ETC!

Originally published at Squash's Garden. You can comment here or there.

Tags: my garden

I agree with someone on DW that many of Emily Dickinson's poems go to the tune of "The yellow rose of Texas", which isn't free verse. (And some to the meter of traditional US protestant hymns, though I'm not sure they're the same ones.)

Anyway, B____ said that "I could not wait for Death" certainly went to the tune of Yellow Rose. so we looked it up on Wikipedia.


Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.

5 We slowly drove—He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility—

We passed the School, where Children strove
10 At Recess—in the Ring
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—

Or rather—He passed Us—
The Dews drew quivering and chill—
15 For only Gossamer, my Gown—
My Tippet—only Tulle—

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
20 The Cornice—in the Ground—

Since then—'tis Centuries—and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity—

A critic almost caught it too.


and when she came to poetry, she came infallibly.”[2]



Supporting LJ vs the Russian DDOS by crossposting from DW. Comment here or at http://houseboatonstyx.dreamwidth.org/41973.html.

Oh, hivemind! I come bearing a puzzlement.

I was certain that I recalled a certain fact about the movie "The Hunt for Red October" which doesn't seem to be so, and now I'm trying to figure out what happened.

I recall seeing the movie either when it came out or sometime not too long thereafter on video (so early 90s). I was very struck by a detail of the Russian defector's motivation: the cause of his wife's death.

But I rewatched the movie, and, at least in the version streaming on Netflix, the cause of his wife's death is never mentioned.

According to Wikipedia, the novel -- which I've never read -- does reveal the cause of the wife's death, but, at least according to Wikipedia, it's similar but importantly different from the cause I recall from the movie.

According to wikipedia: "His wife, Natalia, died at the hands of an incompetent doctor who went unpunished because he was the son of a Politburo member." That's a kind of political corruption, and makes a statement about political privilege in the USSR.

What I remember is that his wife died because the antibiotic with which she was treated turned out to be nothing but water; something to the effect of factory workers defrauding the factory or the factory defrauding the state. This is a different sort of corruption, and it makes a different statement about what was wrong at the time in the USSR.

Am I remembering some other film? Presumably from the same time period? I was very struck by that plot point, and it adhered in my memory to "The Hunt for Red October" ever since.

Tags: movies

I am arriving Thursday afternoon, possibly in time for the Room of One's Own reception and readings, weather and traffic through O'Hare allowing, and will be leaving after breakfast on Monday. Seattle is a lot further from Madison than New York is, and there are no nonstop flights. I'm not on programming this year (I didn't volunteer, because I wasn't sure I could attend the con until after the sign-up deadline), which means either that I am more flexible than usual, or that I will spend more time wondering what to do when.

Cross-posted from Dreamwidth (http://redbird.dreamwidth.org/1385829.html), where there are comments. I welcome comments here or there (OpenID and "anonymous" are fine if you don't have a DW account).

Tags: wiscon

Now and then I get the urge to write another blog post. Sometimes about AQ progress, sometimes about OF progress, and sometimes about whatever issue piques me at the moment, but it would all boil down to repeating myself, mostly. Also, it would be writing about writing instead of writing, ya know?

So I've actually been stuck with AQATWA for a while (not writer's block, exactly, just really having a problem moving past this one $@#%! chapter) plus I have reached almost terminal state with the SF novel. But I am still writing and my goal is still to finish AQATWA and start submitting SF novel to actual agents by the end of the year.

Also, I know I am not keeping up with my rereading of AQATLB. I should, because it's mostly for my benefit (to refresh myself on small details I may have forgotten) but posting self-reviews is beginning to feel very self-indulgent.

Boy, if I have this much trouble maintaining interest in this tiny little LJ for my fanfic fans, I am going to suck if I ever go pro, since nowadays authors are expected to "build a platform" and be all over Facebook and Twitter and such. :P I mean, sure, I can post whatever random thought crosses my mind several times a day, but there are very few people who can do that interestingly, and I don't think I'm one of them. I've also been rethinking my engagement with social media in general. (No, don't worry, I'm not going to suddenly drop off the face of the Internet. It's just that every time I contemplate becoming more active online, the cons outweigh the pros.)

I have planted a small vegetable garden, which is doing well. Next I'll be posting pictures of my salad to Facebook. :P

I hope you at least enjoy the book reviews between my infrequent updates.

Tags: writing

About a year ago I purchased a BluRay player to supplement my existing DVD player/recorder. I bought the BluRay not so much for DVDs (though it's getting harder to find non-BluRay DVDs) but because the player can stream files from my computer.

Alas, my BluRay does not detect my desktop computer, which is very annoying. Monster thinks this is because I'm still using XP, and XP is too old for the player to detect. He suggested I install some DNLA software and/or configure Windows Media Player to stream to the BluRay box. Well, no matter how many times I have tried, I have been unable to configure WMP, so I went looking for DNLA software (no idea what the letters mean.) I found some software that I liked, and I downloaded it for a free trial. It works well, but once my free trial runs out I have to delete it or pay $40 U.S. for it. I like the software (called KooRaRoo) but not enough to pay $40 for it. (What it does is, once I select a file and add the file to the software, I click "Play to device," select my BluRay player, and voila, the file starts playing automatically to my BluRay player and shows up on my TV.)

Does anyone have any recommendations for software that will do the same thing as this KooRaRoo stuff without my having to pay $40 for it? Ideally, though it's probably not likely, I'd love it if there were some way for me to stream content from iTunes, because I was recently gifted with a $25 iTunes card, and I want to rent The Story of Luke from iTunes and watch it on my TV rather than on my computer.

I know that I listened to this song at times whilst Guido and I were long distance, but for whatever reason I never really tuned into the lyrics.

Though you're miles and miles away
I see you every day
I don't have to try
I just close my eyes, I close my eyes

We'll always be together
However far it seems
(Love never ends)
We'll always be together
Together in Electric Dreams

The time apart feels very distant now. In fact, our wedding day is almost exactly two years after we moved in together - that was 03/06/11. Generally, oddly, I find it hard to remember what it felt like. But odd things can spark a memory. Not necessarily in a bad way - not everything about being long distance was bad, some of it was very good. This song has done just that; it's reminded me of that undying, unwavering affection that sustained us through those long years. Never far from each other's thoughts, never out of the mind's eye. It's not that we weren't together, we were just temporarily apart.

We'll always be together.

I'm feeling: loved
I hear: Together in Electric Dreams - Giorgio Moroder with Philip Oakey

Speaking from nightmare ruins of civilization and sanity, "bestselling author Dave Farland" said:

Step 3: Play. Shakespeare once said “The play is the thing.” I think that he understood that playing with words, with ideas, with characters in opposition—brainstorming as he wrote—that was the key to writing well.

Supporting LJ vs the Russian DDOS by crossposting from DW. Comment here or at http://houseboatonstyx.dreamwidth.org/41628.html.

These volumes provide all sorts of climactic, dramatic, startling action, and then a surprisingly relaxed and even sweet and sometimes funny interlude... with DOOM hanging over it.

I like how, especially in these two volumes, people generally behave reasonably and listen when people say they have something important to tell them, and sometimes change their minds when presented with new evidence. There are definitely jerks, bad people, and people being ruthless, self-destructive, and cruel. But there's very little totally random assholery.

I have read way too many recent fantasy novels in which people behave completely irrationally to serve the plot and ensure that the obvious course of action taken by the protagonists won't work. ("Screw your evidence proving that you're not the person who killed my wife and someone else is! I tear it up and drink it like a milkshake, HA HA HA!") I appreciate how Hale often has the logical course of action work, but then new obstacles or unanticipated complications arise.

Everything else is completely and utterly spoilery.

( Read more...Collapse )

Notes on volume one, only spoilery for that volume.

Enemies and Shadows (The Rifter)

The Silent City (The Rifter)

Crossposted to http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1108451.html. Comment here or there.

Tags: author: hale ginn, genre: portal fantasy, lgbtq

I follow several Asperger-related pages on Facebook. Unfortunately, they're 99.9 percent parent-dominated, and 99.9 percent of these parents ask the same thing: "My x-year-old child has been diagnosed with autism/Asperger's. He/She does (X behaviour)" or "He/She has (X physical symptom.) Is this autism/Asperger-related?" What annoys me is not so much that they are asking but the fact that they're not taking into account that not EVERYTHING has to be autism-related, even if the child (or adult, but usually child) is autistic. It could be that the child just happens to behave a certain way because that is part of his or her personality. In some cases, there could be something else going on (like problems with writing could be due to dysgraphia, which can be comorbid with Asperger's but isn't Asperger's).

There was one I saw that actually asked if their child was having stomachaches because of Asperger's. I'm thinking: why not take your kid to the DOCTOR and get him checked out for physical problems, especially diet-related problems, before asking if the symptom is related to Asperger's? I had a lot of stomachaches as a kid, and for me it turned out to be related to lactose intolerance. I was forced to drink a glass of milk with every meal, milk gave me gas, and gas gave me stomachaches.

I also get annoyed when the people who answer questions claim that EVERYONE with autism/Asperger's has or does something. Like, "Is having a high tolerance to pain an Asperger's symptom?" Every single person who answered said yes. They or their children all have high pain tolerance. I had to butt in, because I have LOW pain tolerance. Does that mean I'm not an Aspie?

Then there was a mother who posted the following (this is from memory so is not strictly verbatim): "My 37-year-old son has Asperger's. He has a good job and lives on his own in a very nice apartment that he pays for himself." (Lives completely independently of parents, in other words.) However, he doesn't have a girlfriend. I think it's time he has a girlfriend. How can I get a girlfriend for him? Are there any Aspie women in this community, close to his age, who live in (her city) that I can introduce to my son?" Seriously? Her kid is an adult, lives on his own, and she thinks it's her job to find him a girlfriend? How does she know he even wants one? She says clearly that it's HER idea that he needs one. He's an adult. Let him find his own girlfriend, or boyfriend, or not find one if he doesn't want one.

Tags: asperger, asperger's, asperger's syndrome, autism

. . .printing out Trade Secret as I type, today will be spent immersed in the Jethri-verse.  The interwebs seem to be carrying on as usual without my participation.  Carry on, interwebs, carry on.

* * *

Progress on Carousel Seas

77,938/100,000 words OR 78% complete

"I'm afraid that you'll have nightmares, even if I do finish it," she said. "I've had my share of them, since we started down this path. But, even so -- even now -- I can't see what else we could have done; and it was certain that we had to do something."

"Now you're just having fun with me," I said.

Gran glared -- then laughed.

"You're right. If I'm going to tell it, I ought to tell it properly, from the beginning."

Tags: carousel seas, the writer at work, trade secret