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"Bad Girls"
Oh, the snark! I am filled with squee. I generally hate these Moral Stupidity episodes, but this one isn't just about "our heroine learns a lesson," so, you know, that makes it better. Besides, snark. And Jabba the Human as MOTW, and Big Bad plottiness, and Faith. And snark. |
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Ink & Steel ARC contest winners!
Comments on this entry are screened. If lnhammer, slobbit, enevarim, and clarentine would be so kind as to comment with their addresses, I will get their books out post-haste!I also have two copies of the All the Windwracked Stars ARC to give away, but I have not yet decided what I am doing with those....
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Hmm. I seem to be having myself a nice little plateau, riding-wise. Our low-and-loose work is exceedingly pleasant, but taking that next step to back and up and out on our own is--a little dicey. Hmm and hmm again. I am, it's true, redeveloping a keen awareness of what my body is doing (and a keen sense of panic at how much it needs to do better), so my hopes remain high that we'll have an out-of-lesson breakthrough Any Day Now. ::waits:: ...I said, Any Day Now. ::waits some more:: Hrm. Anyway. Our canter work proceeds apace, and we had our forward thought back in the leg yield today, though tracking right still tends to be stiff. I suspect this is related to something I'm doing with my weight; I did some experimenting today and there were definite differences, though I didn't have enough brain to quite process what was best and why. We did step back down to the walk SI for a bit and that has gotten much better, which does encourage some confidence in our forward progress. And SI into canter? Way too cool. This is all a bit out of order; we did do some transition work today, though traffic flow and the residual tension I was holding made it not quite as satisfying and productive as the other night's. It did indicate that I may be riding too passively in the warm up. Allow, yes, but coast? Maybe not so much. And I'm not entirely thrilled with the response to the leg that I was getting tonight. In retrospect, I should have addressed that more emphatically; I was I think treating it a bit too much as symptom instead of disease. All of this, happily, is stuff that T. is likely to nail me for in tomorrow's lesson, so that should be fun. We finished up with a nice hack out back, playing a bit with our walk SI along the way, and had our first canter-through-water in the puddle on the way back. So that's progress, anyway. Lesson tomorrow, Thursday and Friday off. I'm thinking I could use another ring-to-myself session, so maybe we'll do some conditioning stuff on Saturday and have a dressage school on Sunday? I also get the ride on Danny the Wonder Horse on Sunday. Wheeeeeeee. And I think I'd like to see about getting a jump lesson in the next week or two. I have, meanwhile, been eyeballing the competition calendar for the season, considering my options. As always: onward. |
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You know your real friends by the phone calls you get
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A Sale!
I just heard from the illustrious slushmaster that Realms of Fantasy will be taking my short story, "The Radio Magician." I think that means I'll be in Realms two issues in a row since they took "The Light of a Thousand Suns" at the end of October.
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As an antidote to the broken washer, I want to talk a little about the Fourth Street Fantasy Convention. Please note that the pre-registration deadline has been extended to May 31st. One or two people have asked about the name, so here's the history as I recall it. There's a cartoon depicting a row of restaurants, with signs in order like this: "Best pizza in the city," "Best pizza in the country," "Best pizza on the planet," "Best pizza in the galaxy," and the last one, a tiny place with a long line of people outside it, says simply, "Best pizza on the block." During our first couple of years, Fourth Street was in a downtown hotel on, in fact, Fourth Street, and we used the motto "Best fantasy convention on the block" to indicate the combination of humility and ambition that we brought to the project. Other people probably would tell this differently, but that's how I recall it. I was supposed to write an essay months ago for the website, but I have been finding it difficult to bring up coherent memories. Fourth Street was a great deal like disappearing under the hill, visiting the very far lands of Faerie. It was, at least, if Faerie had chocolate-covered coffee beans and a wedding party leaving at six a.m. so that the participants, including the bride and groom, could be back at the convention for the start of panels at ten; if Faerie included Samuel Delany, leaving in the middle of a panel to catch his plane home and stopping the standing ovation he was getting with the startling words, "No, no, sit down and do what you're doing. This is valuable work"; if Faerie included Jane Yolen and Patricia McKillip doing a joint guest of honor speech; if it included Patrick Nielsen Hayden standing up out of the audience and demolishing the entire premise of a panel and providing a new one, all in a paragraph; if it included a membership so involved in the programming that moderators were sometimes obliged to say they would take only questions, not comments, until later in the hour; if it included sitting around at five in the morning while music was still going on in the other room, discussing simultaneously Dorothy Dunnett, the vagaries and virtues of fountain pens, the flavors of jelly beans, and the proper use of violence in fantasy. A few local writers, both established and aspiring, used to leave early on Sunday, followed by the pleas of their friends to stay longer, because the programming had made them want to do nothing except go home and write. Cally Soukup once stayed up for 72 hours straight at a Fourth Street, because there was always somebody to talk to. It's ten years later now, and we're all different, and some of us are gone, but we're going to try to recapture that feeling. Elizabeth Bear, known to many of you as I'm looking forward to it with the same mixture of glee and trepidation as I always did -- it would take me a long way away and sometimes send me home again unsettled. It doesn't matter if you recognize any of the names I mention above. If you love fantasy, or are curious about it, do think about coming. Pamela |
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Conversation Hearts II
joculum advises: The signed limited edition (250 copies) can only be ordered on the Subterranean Press website, and then only through the page that contains the description of the book. Their catalog order page lists only the 1000 copy edition. The general edition is clothbound, the limited signed edition is leatherbound. |
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Thank you
Some people have been sending me money in response to the request for an investor–sometimes a hundred dollars. I hadn’t been asking for donations; I appreciate them all the more for that. If you sent in a hundred dollars, I think you deserve something spiffy as a thank you; Reesa and Kit and I have been kicking around ideas for exactly what. When we come up with something, we’ll let you know. In the meantime, you have the thanks of a grateful writer.
Meanwhile, concerning the loan request mentioned earlier, if there are people interested in investing smaller amounts (technically, this is a note of hand, not an investment in the business, as it is unsecured), say 3-10k, let us know at the email addresses mentioned in the earlier post. In other news, I’m working on chapter 10 of Iorich, and I think it’s going pretty well. (Originally posted at Words Words Words by skzb. Please leave any comments there.) |
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WICKED GAME greets the world
Nearly three years to the day when the idea for a vampire radio station smacked me between the eyes, WICKED GAME has been released into the wild. Though I've had previous novels published, this one makes me feel like a debut author all over again. :-) There's a ton of book-related news on my LJ today, loaded with linky goodness. Think of it as the deluxe DVD version of this post. As they say in radio, thanks for listening!
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Milestone
Today for my midday PT exercises, I stood on a pillow for an entire minute with my eyes closed without falling into the wall even once. I didn't repeat the feat at the evening session; I fell into the wall three times. And some of the other exercises are still making me really ill. Still, this is the very first time, and it's progress, progress, measurable progress. Definitely time for a woohoo. (That was your cue.) |
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What’s In An Edit (After The Sale)
STATUS: Total confession time. Yes, I’m addicted to nostalgia because I couldn’t resist going to the Duran Duran concert last night for their new album Red Carpet Massacre. Last time I saw this group was in 1984. Yep, twenty-four years ago when I was 16. Oh, how time flies. I have to say that the group as a whole aged fairly well. They even did Planet Earth and Girls on Film in concert. Those were the days… What’s playing on the iPod right now? RIO by Duran Duran (duh) Yesterday I talked about new clients and on agents editing manuscripts before going out on submission for the very first time. What about new projects by current clients who are previously published? Do agents edit those manuscripts as well? The answer is both yes and no. For the most part, when a current client has sold that first book and has an editor, then I, as the agent, don’t usually work on the edit with the client for the next subsequent book. After all, that’s why they have an editor and I don’t want to interfere with the editorial process. There are some exceptions to this though: Exception 1: the author has an editor who isn’t editing and sending in the delivered book straight into copyediting (and yes, this has surprisingly happened). If an author doesn’t need much editing, then this can be a positive thing but for the most part, I have to say that most writers need a bit of editing and guidance before a project is ready for copy edits. So as the agent, I have worked with my authors to do the edit if this is happening. Exception 2: if this is an author’s sophomore attempt, I will sometimes read and work on an edit with the author before their editor sees the manuscript for the very first time. This way we can avoid the sophomore disaster that often happens when an author has spent several years writing the first novel and then has to write the second on a deadline under a year or 8 months or whatever. It’s hard to imagine this is a different process but it is. Editors often complain of the messes they have to clean up when the second (sophomore) contracted book is delivered. If I can help to avoid that, then we’ll do it because I want my author to look great. (If my client has a strong relationship with his or her editor and I know the editor likes things done a certain way, then I stay out of it—even for the sophomore effort. It’s the editor’s job to edit and there’s nothing worse for an editor than having an author who is getting conflicting opinions on the edit from the agent. My job is not to make the editor’s life more difficult on this aspect—on other things yes, but not on the edit. Now if the author is convinced the editor is wrong about the editorial direction, then I’ll be jumping in but as you can see, it all depends on the situation.) Exception 3: If a current client published in one field with one editor is looking to do something else in another genre or in YA (if they write for the adult market), then yes, I’m usually reading and editing that project. Exception 4: If a current author client wants feedback on a new idea or proposal and they’ve put together sample chapters, then I’ll often read and give some feedback for revision before the editor sees it. This doesn’t always happen though. It depends on how strong the client’s relationship is with his/her editor. As you can see, there are just as many ways to edit as there are to agent and how involved the agent is in the editorial process varies greatly! It all depends on the situation. |
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Conversation Hearts
It appears that Amazon.com is prepared to sell any interested party a copy or copies of a new small work of mine, Conversation Hearts, published by Subterranean Press in a signed limited edition, in two bindings. The work (story? Novelette? Thingie?) is a sort of centaur or hybrid, story-within-a-story, which Actually it does not yet exist, however, as I have yet to sign all the signature sheets that will be bound into the finished book, which I am about to do. Those who (for one reason or another) do not wish to purchase a signed limited edition will have to wait even longer, but surely the piece will appear in some less exquisite form somewhere else sometime. |
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Er...
Ok, since this appears to be public... Shawna McCarthy wants to purchase "Desaparecidos" for Realms of Fantasy--my short story featuring angels, a military dictatorship, and tourist travel tips. Many, many thanks to I now officially have three SFWA-qualifying sales under my belt. *goes for a liedown* (Matthieu, always keen to take advantage, points out that I owe him a restaurant dinner to celebrate...*g*) EDIT: I'm breaking out the congratulatory icon:
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Here's something I'm doing right as a mom
By supporting the girls' involvement in karate, I'm protecting them from breast cancer in the years to come. And, of course, by being active myself, I'm lowering my own risk. Go me. |
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Buying Time! (Or Close Enough)
So Shawna has made her latest selections, and will soon be buying the following pieces: "The Radio Magician" by Jim Van Pelt "The Happiest Place" by Carrie Vaughn ''The River of Three Crossings" by Richard Parks (a Lord Yamada tale) "Fragments of a Fantasy Mind" by Joshua Rountree & Mikal Trimm "Late in the Day" by Gregory Frost "Joy is the Serious Business of Heaven" by David Levine "Digging For Paradise" by Ian Creasey "Crocs, Monkeys, Black Vans, and Missing Kids" by Euan Harvey (former slush survivor) "Desaparecidos" by Aliette de Bodard (slush survivor!) It's been a little while since I snagged a slush survivor (my 19th), so it's nice to break the mini-slump. And Euan is a former slush survivor, and since this is his third sale to us, he's well on his way to becoming a regular contributor. Very cool. Congrats to all ...and Aliette, you are a secret slush survivor no longer. ;) |
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Darcourt, by Isabelle Holland
Welcome back to insane cracktastic Gothic land! In a moment of synchronicity, last Friday I was invited to share some Belgian chocolates labeled individually by province. Unfortunately, the font's capital I looked much like a small l, and so when asked to choose, I said, "I'll take the leper!" I do not often come across books containing leprosy, though when I read Darcourt I immediately regretted forgetting about the YA novel in which the heroine develops leprosy, watches her mother agonizingly die of rot, is shipped off to a leper colony, and dies, the end -- I would have certainly included it in my YA agony award nominations if I had. I was also reminded of Thomas Covenant. Normally I don't find characters whiny if they have something to whine about. But Covenant managed to be so whiny that I thought, "Oh, get over your leprosy already!" Young journalist Sally Wainwright impersonates a friend of hers in order to get hired as governess for a wealthy teenager on Darcourt Island. The island is owned by reclusive billionaire Tristram Darcourt. Sally is ostensibly doing this to write an expose on him, but really because her mother was jilted by him and she wants to find out what happened. (She can't ask because both her parents are now dead.) Teenage Alix is wild and has a Mysterious Skin Condition for which she takes Mysterious Meds. Darcourt is high-handed and arrogant. He is also said to have let his brother die in the super-quick quicksand which is featured in the Mysterious Marsh surrounding the house, into which Sally is forbidden to go. Sally is promply menaced by snakes and scorpions released in her room, plus Mysterious Figures, and people shooting at her, whomping her over the head, and trying to kill her dog. Could it be the Mysterious Mrs. Darcourt, alternately said to be in the south of France and lurking in Mysterious Marsh?! Or the off-stage Mysterious Middle Eastern Group which is the subject of a code-named Pentagon study? Or Andre, who is a cousin or something? Or some blonde kid with a cowlick? |
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[cancer] New adventures in pain management
Dropped off completely yesterday as a result of some new adventures in pain management. Let's just say the IPO failed on that venture. I am better now but it made for quite an overnight. Meanwhile, my extracted bit of colon tissue has made an appearance. I am pleased to see my insides so directly May be home Thursday, but still on very low energy/highly reduced schedule mode for a week after that point. Doctor soon. Later days!
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lazy
chipper
jubilant
ecstatic
happy