http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/010378.html

Belatedly I look at some of the results from the New Hampshire Recount. While the data is available on the...

More lovable mutts, the same dogs in the video!
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via gillpolack the news about Conflux, which is hosted by some Australian fans and pros and readers and writers. These are the folks who will be helping me with the big Bittercon January 2009 as they are already experienced in organizing on-line cons.
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Today, for the Writing Workshop series, we're at Raleigh Court branch (in Roanoke) at 2 pm, building a better monster. ;) (I spent yesterday afternoon getting covered in fake fur at the craft store). Please stop by!

Next week, we take a break and reconvene on the 23rd at Main for our final workshop, The Writing Life, at 4 pm.

Digression: I seem to dream constantly of Hong Kong these days. Last night, I was wandering Sha Tin Jockey Club with two of my friends while sipping champagne. The night before, I was in Wong Tai Sin temple, getting my fortune read. And so on...

Is there a place you dream of constantly (or consistently, at least)?

Oh, poor pabba. Check out the weird letter he got from someone:

I don't know if you can change this on your review, or if you care, but I feel wrongly victimized for writing in a very ancient and difficult poetic form that I executed perfectly, and I feel that your review is damaging to my future career as a writer, editor, and palindromist.


If only reviews would damage careers!

I have to follow up on the last post about Don Quixote. I think I'd mentioned that some other guy had published a fraudulent sequel to the book during the ten years between parts 1 and 2? So Cervantes has Don Quixote at an inn where he overhears people discussing the second (fake) book and how bad it is compared to the first. Don Quixote naturally jumps in to criticize this false history as well.

So to the early flints we add:

1. Ship wars!
   In the fake sequel DQ is no longer in love with Dulcinea!! Quixote/Dulcinea OTP!! Quixinea 4-evah!!



2. Character bashing! OOC!Fanon!Sancho!
   He is simple and droll not a glutton and a drunkard!! >:-( And btw, measly account, defective in contrivance, mean in style, wretchedly poor in devices and rich only in absurdities much?



3. "I think the author has been reading fanfic..."
   Well I was GOING to go to Saragossa, but since the guy did it in crapfic now I'm going to go to Barcelona instead just so everybody will know that THAT FIC IS NOT CANON!!



4. Discussion about fanfic!
   "...said Don Juan, "and if it were possible, there should have been a law that no one should dare to write of the affairs of the great Don Quixote except...his first historian..."
   
   "Let anyone portray me who will," replied Don Quixote, but let him not abuse me; patience often stumbles when they pile on too many injuries."

But what are his thoughts on yaoi?

-- squirrel_monkey AKA Ekaterina Sedia.

You should bring your early birthday present to Readercon.

Life is trying to take over but I'm determined to keep squeezing in my 15. Hope you're all well!

~*~*~*~*~*~

halseanderson Daily 15 Keeping Myself Honest Check-In:
Yesterday: 428 words
Today: 459 words

A Divine Image

Cruelty has a Human Heart,
and Jealousy a Human Face;
Terror the Human Form Divine,
and Secrecy the Human Dress.

The Human Dress is forged Iron,
The Human Form a fiery Forge,
The Human Face a Furnace seal'd
The Human Heart its hungry Gorge.

- William Blake
From Songs of Experience

Yesterday someone wrote asking me to explain how it is we live without public water. That is a very good question.

According to the EPA, 15% of Americans get their water from private wells, like us. The town of Mexico, a couple miles down the road, has a public water system, but we don't technically live in the town. The very rural town we do live in is beginning to develop a public water system, but we think it will be at least a decade before they get to our neck of the woods, if ever.

Our well, like all of our neighbors' wells, is a hole dug into the ground (by experts!) until it reached an underground aquifer. Pipes were laid from the well to the house and pumps installed. In our basement, we have a fancy-pants German filtration system to make sure nothing nasty is hiding in the water. We have it tested periodically; it's wonderfully clean and pure.

Our environment would be better off if more people used well water. For one thing, you are less inclined to throw chemicals on your lawn and garden when you know that you'll be drinking them. Secondly, knowing that water is a finite resource makes people pay more attention to their consumption. It's not that we walk around unbathed or anything, but we try really hard not to waste a drop. (That's why there are rain barrels to help collect water for the garden.)

One more water note (I write this watching the sky, hoping the rain gets here soon.) When we lose electricity, we lose water access because the pump doesn't work. This doesn't happen often, but since I married a Boy Scout, we're always prepared for it.

I do think that living out here in the country, heating our home with wood, snowshoeing when the driveway is blocked, getting by without electricity and water occasionally, not having air conditioning, plus growing and preserving our food has given me an insight into 18th century living conditions that I wouldn't have had otherwise. (And I haven't talked about our camp yet.... one word ... outhouse!)

Enough about our plumbing. It's time to write.

Today's goal: Write for 15 minutes. If you have public water, push yourself and write for 16 minutes.

Today's mindset: curious and open-minded

Today's prompt: interview your character. Don't overthink this. Just ask your character questions so you can get to know her/him better.

Hint: don't accept generic answers. Push for details. For example, "pizza" is unacceptable as an answer to question #1. "Thick-crusted pizza with asiago cheese, fresh basil, and prosciutto, served with a glass of Beaujolais nouveau and eaten on the screen porch" is the level of detail you're reaching for.

I'll get you started with a few:
1. Favorite food
2. Secret crush in elementary school
3. Which relative do you loathe and why?
4. Favorite smell
5. What magazine do you buy when no one is watching?
6. What's your best feature?
7. If you were given a paid day off and $500, what would you do with it?
8. What's your biggest regret?
9. Favorite sound
10. What is hidden in the box at the back of your closet?

Scribblescribble

It never fails to tickle me when Chinese people use the word "fragrant" as a positive thing. (As in: Fragrant Harbour: Hong Kong.) To me, cowpats are fragrant. Driving through the countryside when muck has been spread is fragrant. Not...Buddha.

I brought home a kitten about a week and a half ago. She's about four months old, and almost obscenely adorable. She's also terrifically good-natured; she let me clip her nails on her first day home, and she gets along great with the whole family [including my older cat]. These pictures are all from her first day here, when she was still confined to a bathroom. But I have to say, she does match the decor quite well.

( Baaaaaby cat! )

I suddenly realized I hadn't posted pictures of her here yet, so now I'm fixing that! :)

I did not know - Leonard Cohen
I did not know
until you walked away
you had the perfect ass
Forgive me
for not falling in love
with your face or your conversation

And by this I don't mean like, Slytherin or Kirkland. I mean, names for houses that are really sort of estates, like Pemberley. I need names for:

• two houses in Virginia that at one time in the past were likely plantations
  
• a duke's estate in England.

Help me, o livejournal of great wisdom!

Meanwhile, today I read nine relatively short, but quite good, Lindsay Lohan/Samantha Ronson fics. Link provided upon request.

The internship went well today, as usual. The managing editor liked the last piece I did and has offered me a few more to write, so that's good stuff.

After bouncing ideas off Matthew for almost an hour, I've been able to hammer out a few characterization problems that have been bothering me with TGAFN (namely, that the main character is not awkward enough, the main character's wannabe-girlfriend is a Mary Sue, and a rather insignificant secondary character has inadvertently transformed into my friend Peter). I feel really good about the whole arc of the thing, now: mentally, I have it all plotted out, and it seems like it would fall pretty easily into place in another draft.

Of course, that will mean writing another draft. When I had the house to myself and could type without interruption, I put out about fifty-thousand words (48,464 to be exact), and although I know I'll be able to use some of that later, it might be time to put the whole thing aside once again.

Which is, of course, daunting. I am not a patient person. I like writing dramatic beginnings and dramatic endings and a lot of the time want to gloss over the whole middle section where plot- and character-development happens. This is why I like short stories; I can finish them before I get bored.

The new goal is thus: take things one step at a time, keep plodding along, and don't take any more unnecessary breaks to write Zoe/Wash fanfiction. :D

***

Oh, and my love for The Amber Spyglass has no limits. I want to be Lyra when I grow up.