At some point this morning, I dreamed of finding a very small plesiosaur vertebra, no larger than a quarter. It was jet black, and I could tell that the vertebra was from a very young plesiosaur, as the articular facets of the bone were so poorly ossified. Later, I dreamed of a concrete pond filled with baby sea turtles, and I held one in my left hand.

Yesterday was mostly a reading day, a day when there seems to be little else but reading. We finished Robert Silverberg's Nightwings (1968), in preparation for this next story I have to write (I'm shelving the zombie story, "(Dead) Love Among the Ruins" until later in the month). I signed the contracts for the Audible.com editions of five of my novels (those go back in the mail to NYC today). I finished the crossword puzzle in the November '09 National Geographic, and then began the one in the October issue. For dinner, Spooky made pizza with basil and sausage and soft white lumps of fresh mozzarella cheese. Late last night, I read to Spooky from Greer Gilman's (nineweaving) Cloud and Ashes. Those were, I think, the best parts of yesterday.

And today, I have to write. I'm thinking I need to do a minimum of 1,200 words a day almost every day for the remainder of the month. Then I will only be behind.

Please consider pre-ordering The Ammonite Violin & Others if you have not already done so. And don't forget that the numbered edition (limited to 300 copies) comes with the chapbook "Sanderlings."

Time to make the doughnuts....

Oh yeah, we are on. Not sure what all we're watching, yet, but we are on!

Casa Cthulhu. 8 pm. food, folks, and firearms.

supernatural.... and... ???

Jen's lame of the day!



It's just a click, just a click, JUST A CLICK!

In other news: (super secret cryptic invisible code below)

HATCH

A bright, sunny, cold day here in Providence. The snow that came yesterday morning has mostly melted away.

Sonya (sovay) and Geoffrey (readingthedark) both arrived on Tuesday evening. Geoffrey quite a bit later than Sonya. And we were up until almost dawn talking, and mostly we talked about The Wolf Who Cried Girl. That is, they helped me find my way into the novel, which I "should" have begun writing six months ago, but am only just now beginning to understand. Truly, what happened Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning had never before happened. That is, talking my way through the story of a novel (when we began, I had little but theme, mood, character, and subtext), and allowing the thoughts of others to help me uncover a plot (as well as deeper levels of theme, mood, character, and subtext). I now have pages and pages of notes, recording what was said, and as soon as I write an sf story I need to write for a Subterranean Press anthology, I will sit down and begin the novel's prologue. Unless it has no prologue, and begins with Chapter One, which is certainly possible. One of the many delights of the evening was discovering a way to work into the novel a couple of substantial elements of "Werewolf Smile." Anyway, my great thanks to both Geoffrey and Sonya. It was a grand evening of conversation.

Early Tuesday evening, after Spooky and I picked Sonya up at the train depot, the three of us stopped off at Myopic Books in Wayland Square. Just to window shop, as I already have too many unread books waiting to be read. Though Sonya found a biography of Charles Addams that sorely tempted me. After Myopic, we went to the coffee house around the corner, The Edge. Back home, Geoffrey arrived about 8 p.m. (CaST), and the four of us went downtown for dinner at the Trinity Brew House. I guess I'm putting in all these links because I didn't take the camera along. Anyway, it was a peculiar night for me, so much socializing, so much being Outside, and allowing two other people to help me work my way over a writing barricade. Geoffrey headed back to Framingham yesterday afternoon, and, later, Spooky took Sonya back to to depot. I think it was almost twilight by then.

So now, it's back to work. A furious storm of writing that has to get done before the end of the month.

A reminder that subpress is now taking pre-orders for The Ammonite Violin and Others, and that the numbered edition comes with a chapbook, "Sanderlings."

Last night, Kathryn and I watched Nora Ephron's Julie and Julia. It's an odd sort of film for me to comment on. It was an odd sort of film for me to even watch. But I did enjoy it, though I found Meryl Streeps performance as Julia Childs' far and away more entertaining than the other half of the film, the Amy Adams half about the bored wife/beleaguered office worker from Queens and her foodie blog that wants to be a novel. Indeed, I think I would have much preferred a film devoted entirely to the life of Julia Childs, especially given Streep's amazing performance, which I think is worthy of an Oscar nomination.

Anyway...must get to work or the platypus will have hisherit's way with me, and it's really too early in the day for those sorts of shenanigans.

Just when you thought it was safe to play around with gum and chemicals!

A chemistry student from the northern Ukrainian city of Konotop was killed when a stick of chewing gum exploded in his mouth, Ukrainian media reported on Tuesday.

The 25-year-old student of Ukraine's Kiev Polytechnic Institute was working at a computer in his parents' house late on Saturday when the incident occurred.

"A loud pop was heard from the student's room," the ukranews.com portal said, citing an aide to the city's police chief. "When his relatives entered the room they saw that the lower part of the young man's face had been blown off."

A forensic examination established that the chewing gum was covered with an unidentified chemical substance, thought to be some type of explosive material.

Police questioning revealed that the student had a bizarre habit of chewing gum after dunking it into citric acid. On his table, police found both citric acid packets and a similar-looking unidentified substance, believed to be some kind of explosive material.

...

Although the local forensic department does not have the necessary equipment to identify the substance, it refused to send it to the capital, Kiev, over fears that it might explode during transportation.

A sad story to be sure, but one that may have been oddly prophesied by The Onion a little over a year ago!

Today's lesson: don't put weird chemicals in your fucking mouth.

If you're thusly inspired, you can order it here, or stick it on your wish list so's someone else can foot the bill for you:)

Thanks to those of you who wrote such nice reviews! Please, let your friends know if you liked the book - I've gotta sell a lot more of these (like, 2000 altogether) before I can prove myself to a distributor. I'm about a fifth of the way there. Mmmmmm...a fifth:)

Brittrack December Meet and Greet this Sunday!

All right. I know you all have been waiting with baited breath (Eww, smells like worms!) So, without further ado, the December Meet and Greet is announced! <much fanfare> Come and raise a pint with your fellow Brittrackers and revel in the camaraderie that is, er, Brittrakky. Sorry, fell through there. Well, you get the point.

We hope to see you all there!

When: Sunday 12 Dec @ 2:00 PM
Where: The Grange Public House
426 West Ponce De Leon Avenue, Decatur, GA
(404) 270-9950‎

Google Maps Directions to the Grange
http://thegrangepublichouse.com/

I was thinking about making a Klingon costume. ;D
BUT i was wondering where i could find/see some outfits from DC.
and some tips would be appreciated

I found this thread over at Reddit.com today, called "Just another reason as to why I don't go to Cons anymore." It linked to a post by a past Dragon*con vendor, "Blind Ferret", who says they have been "booted" from Dragon*con 2010 over an "incident" Dragon*con was at fault in.

You can read all about it here: Booted from Dragon*con

Reddit posting: Just another reason as to why I don't go to Cons anymore.

People have been looking for an official Dragon*con response to all of this, but I haven't seen one posted as of yet.

Edit Not sure why I'm being confused with someone else, but just to be clear

1) I didn't post this anywhere else
2) I'm not affiliated with the comic. Never even heard of it till I read about it on reddit
3) Not trolling. Didn't say I supported either D*C or the comic people. Just said people were looking for a response from D*C and I hadn't seen one. That's it. I posted this because it was causing a big stir and worth at least mentioning.

Sheesh.

Remember being ten? Think about what you thought then. Girls were yucky. McDonald’s was a culinary delight. The boy who shoved your books out of your hands was gonna follow through on his threat to abduct you & put you in a shed & chop you into little pieces. (Wait, just me? Okay.)

Fast forward ten years, twenty. Look at all you’ve learned. Consider your young trials. How much worry did you waste sweating the small stuff?

It’s all about perspective. Step back. You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for, you’re stronger than you think, and this all WILL work out, somehow.

It’s not as bad as you think, but you can always ensure it becomes much, much harder, and that’s by compounding the problem. If you get yourself a drug habit cuz you just lost your job, that’s not gonna make anything better. If your relationship has gone south, buying a home together ain’t gonna save it. If you get drunk and hook up with some hot mess, ending up with an unplanned kid or a burning nether region, your earlier misery will pale in comparison to the dubious joys that await you.

Perspective again. Step back. Take ten deep breaths. Write down your options. Talk to people smarter than you. Stay focused. Don’t make it worse than it is. You’ll look back, sometimes in ten years, sometimes in ten days, and you’ll realize it wasn’t that big a deal, after all.

As my father was fond of telling me (more often than I care to admit), “This, too, shall pass.”

Cold in Providence this morning, but also sunny, and it's much colder elsewhere.

Yesterday, I realized that a week of December had passed and I'd accomplished "nothing" but the editing, design, and layout of the "Sanderlings" chapbook. I still have to get the Next Novel started, produce Sirenia Digest #49, and write a story for a Subterranean Press anthology, all of this ideally before December 31st. These are the sorts of realizations that lead to panic.

Anyway, I began a new piece yesterday, a sort of zombie love story (played straight, not for comedy), which was inspired in equal parts by Robert Browning's "Love Among the Ruins" (1855) and Edward Burne-Jones' painting of the same name (1893-1894; also inspired by the Browning poem). I am presently calling it "(Dead) Love Among the Ruins," unless I decide that's too obvious or corny or whatever. This is only the second time I've tried to do "zombies," sensu Romero et al., for the digest, and we'll see how it goes. I managed only 470 words yesterday.

I'm beginning to think that the Next Novel will be titled The Wolf Who Cried Girl (though I've written a short story of the same name; the novel and short story would have nothing much in common).

My great thanks to Karen Mahoney for very kindly sending me a copy of Greer Gilman's (nineweaving) Cloud and Ashes (Small Beer Press; 2009). I started reading it late last night. I heard Greer read from it at ReaderCon this past July, and it is brilliant, truly. The sort of brilliant I may aspire to, but know that I will never achieve.

I do have some good news for everyone who's ever asked about the availability of my books in an audio format. Audible.com is buying audio rights to Threshold, Low Red Moon, Murder of Angels, Daughter of Hounds, and The Red Tree. I do not yet have release dates, but I assume it will be sometime in 2010.

That was the best of yesterday, really.

Last night, I had a minor seizure while in the tub, the first that's ever happened while bathing. And then there was insomnia, which kept me awake until sometime after 4 a.m.

Anyway...now I'm going to go play with dead things, and maybe hang some pictures.

At some point over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be replacing the VPN appliance we're using at my office.

We are a mix right now of about 90% Windows / 10% Mac, but the mac side of the house is growing rapidly. There's talk of standardizing on Mac at some point.

Given that we're going much more to the Apple side of the house, I want to make sure that I get something that's Mac friendly, and even more specifically iPhone friendly.

The Cisco ASA 5510 is my first choice, just because I've used Cisco the most and I know they support Mac clients.

But, that being said... anyone have some good personal recommendations for a VPN appliance that has good options for Mac clients?

It's a small place... 50 users, about 1/2 in the office at any given time.

Who would love to see Kevin Conroy at Dragon*Con 2010?

Who should we get in touch with?

Chime-in...

Heyla, folks. This year will be my third year at D*Con. After two years of going as Aeryn Sun or dressed up in my SCA clothes, I want to branch out a bit with my costuming.

On my wish list is a Jedi outfit, WoW Night Elf costume and a Fremen from Frank Herbert's Dune (aka the Sci-Fi channel version). Jedi and Nelf, I've found patterns/prosthetics for and can probably swing with little difficulty. However, I'm having a hard time finding patterns or advice on the Fremen stillsuit. Plugging the most likely suspects into Google has produced nothing I can use. Do any of you old-hands at cosplay have any suggestions for where I can look?

Thanks.

One year ago today, Sméagol came to live with us. He was called Linus then, but we soon corrected that.

If anyone's interested in gifting Spooky and me with the distractions that help to make this existence bearable, in the form of Solstice gifts, we have both updated our Amazon wish lists. You can find mine here, and you may find hers here. Thank you. This past month has taken a toll on finances, from car troubles to doctor bills, and there's less money than usual for these niceties. CDs, DVDs, books. And we are both perfectly happy with used copies. Thank you kindly.

---

Yesterday, I followed a link Neil Clarke (of Clarkesworld Magazine) posted to Twitter, and found a fine little essay/blog entry on writing, in the blog of Damien G. Walter: "Show Me the Writers Taking Risks." It speaks very much to my "writing process" (though I do loathe that phrase), and opens with this quote from Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles (borrowed from Frederico Fellini): "Don’t tell me what I’m doing, I don’t want to know." It moves along to another Bradbury quote: "First you jump off the cliff, then you build the wings." Which is about the best advice I could ever give any would-be writer. Stop plotting. Stop outlining. Stop writing character profiles and fretting over arcs. Kill the spreadsheets. Forget the workshops. This isn't science, and tedium won't save you. Writing is art, which means it's pretty much magic. Peer over the edge, size up the drop, then just fucking jump off the cliff and get to work, because the ground is rushing towards you, or you're rushing towards the ground (it hardly matters which). Just write the damned story. In this short essay, Walter writes:

So many writers seem set on not just building wings, but complete impact survival systems before they even venture to the cliff edge (while others are hurling themselves into the void without even a sense that the ground exists).

Anyway, yes...I suggest you have a look.

---

Yesterday, we drove down to Saundertown, to Spooky's parents' place. It was good to get out of the House. It helped to alleviate that feeling that I might, at any moment, shatter. We saw fields blanketed with a thin crust of snow, and we saw stark trees, and a deer at the side of the road. We got a dozen fresh eggs from the farm. We saw a leafless tree burdened with frozen apples. There are photos below, behind the cut.

Last night sort of turned into Revisit TV Shows We Hated the First Time Night. It also became an evening of These Shows Have Improved Somewhat Revelation. First we watched a couple of the most recent episodes of Fringe. Yes, it's improved. We tried to watch the series back when it first began and found it painful and impossible. But things seemed a little tighter last night (absurd science aside). If nothing else, John Noble is entertaining as Dr. Walter Bishop, and I'm seeing depth to the character that was missing early on. And Phillip Broyles isn't bad, but the rest of the cast feels extruded, mass produced, interchangeable. The series has a long way to go to stop being an inferior X-Files knockoff.

We also watched the latest episode of Dollhouse. And, you know, the only thing really keeping the episode from being quite decent was Eliza Dushku, who still can't act her way out of a paper bag. Summer Glau was creepy, and that's a good thing. I know the series has been canceled. And I hate like hell to see Joss Whedon keep hitting the wall like this, but he should have known better than to pin his star to Fox (again) and the talentless Miss Dushku. She can't even convincingly act like a blank doll. Rather, she acts like someone trying and failing to act like a blank doll. But I will watch the next episode, regardless.

So, yes...photos (there's even one of me, and those are growing increasingly rare):

( 6 December 2009 )

So I've had my iMac for about 2 years. Runs OS X ver. 10.5.8, 2.4GHz, Intel Core 2 Duo, 1 GB 667 MHz.
I have a external drive dedicated to Time Machine.

My problem has been that in the last 2 months, everything has been running noticeably slower. The "Loading" message in the URL window seems to run and run, and the spinning colorwheel pops up very often.

I went in yesterday and today and cleaned up my Desktop, and moved a lot of photo and data files off to CDs.
I always empty the history and cache after surfing, and any other large files I've been working with. I do a lot of Photoshopping of pics, so moved them off too. Restarted, and not much difference in speed. I am not sure what to do next.

Do I need to go into Photoshop and remove .jps that save back to Photoshop? Or go into Pages/Numbers and remove all the project files that they save in "Documents"? Should I be looking for something else?

This may be basic knowledge for most of you, but I am not familiar with what other measures to take, or comfortable rooting around in the system for things. I'd appreciate pretty basic language of what i should do, and/or steps to take.

I hope someone here can advise me,

thanks

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