Month: August 2008

A worthwhile read

By / August 23, 2008 / 5 Comments

Posts like this one are the reason that I love reading Jim Hines’ journal. Like Jim, I’ve noticed prejudices/judgments in my own brain. I try to control them and eliminate them. Jim is braver than I. He doesn’t just quietly try to remove the prejudices from his brain, he kicks those prejudices out in the open where everyone can see his process of examination and elimination. My method of prejudice removal makes me a better person. Jim’s method has the chance to make many people better, because we can all see what he has done and may realize we need to do it ourselves. I recommend you take the time to read Jim’s post and examine his process even if you have no particular feelings about Gaming/Tie-in books.

Blogging

By / August 22, 2008 / 2 Comments

Some days I stare at the blank “journal entry” box and feel like I have nothing to say. I want to write something brilliant, or witty, or thought provoking; something that will inspire people to comment and drag their friends here to read my words. I want that, and some days I feel close, but other days I stare at the blank white box and feel that my life and my every thought is just… boring, uninspired. So I hammer out an entry about the thoughts in my brain and it all feels prosaic. Every writer I’ve ever talked to has times when they feel like what they’ve written is worthless. Blogging does not get a pass on this. The bloggers I’ve talked to all have moments of wondering why on earth they do it. I no longer wonder why I blog. It has reached the point where blogging has become part of my emotional process. Even things that are too personal for the internet get processed in writing. Not blogging would take a serious readjustment of my psyche. So I don’t wonder why I blog anymore, but sometimes I wonder why other people show up to read it. Some days I can see value in what I write, other days I can’t. That is just how it is.

Talking about my feelings about blogging always feels awkward. It feels like begging for compliments. It feels like the classic public-speaking mistake of getting up in front of the crowd and expressing why I feel like I’m not qualified to give the speech, thus undermining everything that comes afterward. Is blogging about blogging meta-blogging? I’m not sure. But the experience of blogging and of reading blogs has a major impact on my life and so not talking about it feels like ignoring the elephant in the room.

At Ad Astra I was a panelist for an hour long discussion on “The Experience of Blogging.” At that panel there was a moment when time seemed to slow down and my words felt heavy with truth. It was my moment to give last words, and I said that the reason I blog is because there is a possibility that my words will be exactly what someone else needs today; the possibility that my thoughts will make someone else’s life better. The truth that I did not say, is that sometimes that “someone” who needs my words is my future self. Sometimes the words she needs are not the brilliant ones, but the “boring” words that will echo through the years wafting with memories of a time gone by. Sometimes I find in someone else’s blog a thought or idea that is completely new to me. Sometimes the thought is so profound that it sets my head spinning. Often that profound thought comes from a blog entry that the writer probably considered boring.

Are some blog entries boring? Of course they are. I’m definitely a blog skimmer. I’ll skip entries that cover topics that don’t interest me. Many of my own entries are similarly boring. But “boring” is not the same thing as valueless. Often blogging is like building a sandcastle. The point is the process rather than the result. Also like sandcastles, blogs often change shape in the making. An entry that starts out as one thing may end up being a very different shape than intended. This entry for example. I meant to write about having nothing to say, but once I started digging, I found thoughts that had lain buried for a long time. There is another way that blog entries are like sandcastles. They never seem to be truly complete. There’s always something else that could be built up or smoothed down. But in the end there comes a time to call it done and walk away.

Sandcastles. It has been a long time since I’ve built a sandcastle. We have lovely new sand in our sandbox and tomorrow is Saturday. Perhaps it is time for me to remedy that.

My marketing brain is tired

By / August 22, 2008

I spent several hours yesterday sending emails to book bloggers who I thought might be interested in reviewing Hold on to Your Horses. It took so long, not because of a gargantuan list, but because I agonized over the wording of the email. It is tricky to send out an advertisement/request without making it sound like spam. I seem to have done alright though because I’ve gotten positive responses from most of the bloggers that I emailed. Then this morning I spent several more hours responding to the responses and shipping out books. The positive responses were so encouraging that I spent another hour or more researching even more blogs that I’ll contact on another day. Oh, and I finally finished up that press release. All the packages are in the mail. Hopefully in weeks to come, I’ll be able to do a Link Salad to all the lovely reviews. Now it is time for me to shut down the marketing brain and go do something else. This is necessary because the thought of further marketing is currently exhausting. But turning off the marketing brainis proving difficult. I keep spinning further plans for both Hold Horses and for Schlock Mercenary. The thought of executing on these plans is completely unappealing right now, but my brain continues to provide the plans. Sometimes my brain won’t shut up.

Out From Under begins

By / August 21, 2008

The first layout pass on Out From Under is done. The book will be in the 80 page range. This is so much shorter than Teraport Wars. The layout went much more quickly and will continue to go quickly. As usual, the biggest tasks are Howard’s. He has some coloring to do, a bonus story, and a cover. But right now he’s working to replace the buffer that he lost because of Comic Con and Worldcon. It just feels good to get the project started. It feels even better to realize that I’m looking forward to seeing this book come together. It is going to be a fun book.

The third day

By / August 20, 2008 / 2 Comments

…and on the third day of the new schedule we’re starting to find the rough edges. Getting up for school is no longer shiny and new, it is now just early. Way early. Especially considering that the kid’s bio-clocks think they shouldn’t be going to sleep until after 9 pm. I’m trying to adjust the bedtimes earlier, but it is difficult when the sky is still light and some of their friends are running around our cul de sac right outside their bedroom windows.

So far there have been no Incidents at school. Everyone still likes their teachers. Mostly. Kiki wants to drop one class because it is annoying her greatly after only two days. Since it is an elective, I’m going to let her. That’s tomorrow’s task. Patch had his kindergarten assessment. He was very subdued and concerned about getting things right. He did a great job, but the change of context meant that he wasn’t able to provide sounds for all the letters he knows. This upset him a little because he knew he should know them. But his teacher worked with him perfectly and I assured him that “I don’t know” can be the right answer. In the end it was a positive experience.

Today had an extra layer of emotional difficulty because the backyard neighbor’s dog was put down yesterday evening. My kids were just as attached to the dog as her kids were, so there has been some emotional aftermath. Both Kiki and Gleek came home from school and burst into tears within minutes of entering the house. In both cases it was because they realized that the little dog who’d greeted them so happily after school would never do so again. The raw reality of dozens of “never agains” loomed large. For me too. I wrote a big long post and then realized that no one but me needed the litany of memories about my neighbor’s dog. I’ll save it for when the kids need to hear stories about the dog.

The various projects of Lawrence M. Schoen

By / August 19, 2008

Howard and I met Lawrence M. Schoen at Worldcon. I knew him a little bit from the Codex Writer’s forum to which Lawrence and I both belong, so when he snagged the empty chair near us at a party, I was able to introduce him to Howard. That was the beginning of two days of conversations and banter. Howard enjoyed Lawrence’s sense of humor so much, that he asked me to buy copies of the Amazing Conroy chapbooks that were available at a booth across from ours. So I wandered over and picked up Buffalogic Inc, Buffalogenesis, and Buffalogistics. I’m not sorry I did, they were delightful to read.

The Amazing Conroy stories are fun to read. They read much like Niven’s Gil Hamilton or Beowulf Schaeffer stories do, where the complexities of living with aliens are laid out, create a problem, and then the main character solves the problem by applying knowledge given earlier in the story. This kind of thing is very difficult to pull off without it seeming like Deus Ex Machina, but Schoen does it. I highly recommend the stories, although I do recommend that you read Buffalogenesis before reading the second story in Buffalogic Inc. “Telepathic Intent”, the second story in Buffalogic Inc seems to be chronologically last of the stories. You can either get them on paper via SRM Publisher or electronically via Fictionwise. Many other works by Schoen are available on Fictionwise. I may have to abandon my resistance to reading things electronically and check out some of his other fiction.

Lawrence Schoen is also one of the owners of Paper Golem, a new small publisher. I found Lawrence’s intentions for Paper Golem to be truly wonderful. He hopes to provide a publishing venue for Novellas and for single author anthologies, both of which are notoriously hard to sell. I was very impressed that he really wants to provide a service rather than seeking his own profit. Paper Golem has already released it’s first book, Prime Codex. Prime Codex is a collection of some of the best stories that the writers of the Codex Writer’s forum had to offer. I finally picked up a copy just before Worldcon and I’m wending my way through it now. These are all solid stories. I like some of them better than others, but that is merely personal preference because all of the stories are excellently written. I highly recommend picking up a copy either directly from Paper Golem or from Amazon.com.

So in short: Lawrence M. Schoen = nice guy, good writer, worthwhile publisher.

The end of the stumble

By / August 18, 2008

You know how you’re walking along and then you trip over something, but you don’t fall on your face, you just continue to stumble and trip, almost falling down, but not quite, until you finally catch your balance again? Starting school today was like that. Not like the stumbling part, but like catching balance at the end of the stumbling. Suddenly, instead of every moment needing full attention and wild flailing, there is just a calm walking rhythm. I don’t think I fully realized how chaotic the summer was until I reached today. I had all the kids out the door by 8 am. I had the critical business tasks done by 11 and there were still several quiet hours left in the day. Now I’m in the afternoon when all the kids are around and I don’t spend any time in my office. This evening there will be dinner and homework and an early bedtime. This isn’t the first day of a new routine. This is having my old routine back where it belongs.

Fall resolutions

By / August 17, 2008

The past month has been expensive. We knew it was going to be. We talked and planned and calculated carefully. The two hotel bills will be covered by profits from the respective conventions. The down payment on the next book has been planned for. The repairs to the vehicles were not a surprise nor were the bills for eating out while traveling and the gas it took to get there and back. But it is one thing to carefully plan and calculate in advance. It is quite another to have all those bills come due nigh simultaneously. The tab was over five figures. I am suddenly inspired to re-institute many frugal habits which fell by the wayside while we were so stressed and busy.

The timing on the intention is good. The kids start school tomorrow and we’re going to be settling into a new life rhythm. I can build frugality right into the pattern. The first place to start is with meals. I need to be cooking from scratch rather than grabbing from the freezer. With life moving a little slower, I should have time to do the advance planning that cooking requires. Cooking gets difficult when Kids are already poinging around the kitchen complaining of starvation. I also need to clean. Howard’s office, my office, the pantries, the linen closet, the kids’ closets, all are in dire need of reorganization. I want to throw things out. Getting rid of stuff makes me feel in control of my life and it reduces the visual/emotional clutter. Lots has accumulated over the months of busy. It is time to clear out and to spend less.

A style of my own

By / August 17, 2008 / 11 Comments

Whenever I come home from a convention, my head is full of thoughts of wonderful clothing. At conventions I realize that the clothing styles I truly love are not exactly in style. So I then imagine myself creating a wardrobe full of things that I love to wear that don’t mark me as a weirdo, but do look different from the current “trendy.” Phil and Kaja Foglio did this admirably. Everything they wore fit in both the modern world, but also could have walked right into the world of Girl Genius and fit there as well. I loved the way that they matched each other. I’m not sure Howard and I will pull that off because we have different personal preferences for clothing. But whether or not we match each other, we both want to be wearing something more original than “nice professional,” Or “geek casual” (t-shirt & jeans.) Those looks are fine for at home, but at conventions it would be nice to be more distinctive. So my brain has been plotting. Howard brought home a lab coat from Linucon. A lab coat could be a good look, particularly if the coat is tailored to fit attractively. Whatever look he picks, needs to go well with his cool boots. As for me, I see long full skirts, and shirts with fitted waists, and embroidery.

Sigh. I do this every time. My brain fills with images of beautiful clothes. Then the reality of my daily schedule asserts itself. I don’t have time to spend hours sewing. Compared to the other uses of my time, clothing just is not important enough to make the list. But I can while away the occasional Sunday afternoon dreaming.

The clothing sort

By / August 16, 2008 / 2 Comments

Today I was seized by a need to sort through all the clothes in our house. My primary purpose was to get rid of many of them because after doing post-trip laundry for two conventions, one family vacation, and one camping trip, I’m of the opinion that we all have way too many clothes. Also I wanted to assess what clothes my kids have waiting for them when cold weather hits in October. I now have a big pile of things that are leaving my house and never coming back. I also have newly sorted boxes waiting for kids to grow a little bigger. I have identified the gaps that I’ll need to fill. (not many) And I’m still feeling like we have too many clothes. But at least I know where they all are and most of them are clean.