In case any of you missed this over on editorial_ass, it's some fine advice on whether to write the whole series/trilogy now or wait until you've sold the first book. Her advice matches up with what my instincts have always told me: don't write the sequel unless and until you've sold the first novel, because...well, read what she says.

I am definitely planning out subsequent novels in my trilogy—a sensible precaution, I believe, when one is going to shop the first book in a proposed series and quite separate from the writing thereof. I've also been occupying myself with inventing a language, or rather reinventing. I'd used some fake language bits in the first draft confident I'd remember what the words meant, but by the second draft, I had only the vaguest clue. By the third, I was utterly lost.

So I decided to start from scratch and formally structure this language. The lovely and talented mnfaure mentioned a similar obsession for one of her works and recommended Holly Lisle's language clinic, so that's what I'm using.

In my spare time. :-) It satisfies my inner obsessive-compulsive nicley, I must say. I can wile away the hours...

And it's also helped with some of the worldbuilding. Coming up with grammar rules and distinctive sounds, et al., has already got me thinking things like, "How would that sound coming out of the mouth of a nonhuman?" All good questions to ask oneself when layering the worldbuilding.

If I should happen to write that sequel.

Random quote of the day:


"Go, and never darken my towels again!"

—Groucho Marx, Duck Soup



(Thanks, Kim.)



( Illustrated version. )

Love you, Hillary.

I didn't get back to the current WIP right away after finishing up the language edits for A Rain of Angels. I'm waiting for a handful of final crits on that one and thought I was safe from it for awhile, but apparently my mutant psyche had other plans.

I got mugged later in the week by the worldbuilding for the sequel to Angels. That is, my subconscious suddenly supplied me with the character hook I'll need to tunnel into that idea. I've had the überidea for some time now, but that was a vague, high concept. Concept is a no-go for me without meat on the bones. Character POV and meat splattered down on me heavily last week.

Of course, worldbuilding is always the fun part of this and I can easily be seduced by it. So fun to play in imaginary back yards. I let it play out for a few days, then told the backbrain it was time to settle down and get on with the current WIP. I started back on that yesterday. It feels okay. Still the saggy middle, but meaningful forward progress. Only mild panic flaring around the edges. The usual. I can deal.



Venus In Transit

64,500 / 100,000 (64.5%)

Random quote of the day:


"Like stones, words are laborious and unforgiving, and the fitting of them together, like the fitting of stones, demands great patience and strength of purpose and particular skills."

—Edmund Morrison





( Illustrated version. )

I just finished up the last of my 3 back-to-back conventions. Thank god the last one was here in Albuquerque!

Highlights:

I was on two great panels with interesting people: YOUR BOYFRIEND'S A WHAT - PARANORMAL RELATIONSHIPS with Suzy Charnas, Daniel Abraham, Carrie Vaughn and Yvonne Coats. It was a lively and fun panel The funny part is that Suzy (Vampire Tapestry has just been rereleased!!!) and I were both taking notes!

THEY PUT WORDS ON FILM: SCI-FI SCREENWRITING with Artist GOH Bob Eggleton, Steven Gould (Jumpers) Eldon Thmson, I an Tregillis and Melinda Snodgrass. Not only was the panel great, but there were great questions from the audience.

Highlights:

Suzy McGee Charnas read the tarot cards for me. Very cool.

Afternoon Authors Tea: This was a formal tea sponsored by the pros -- we brought savories and sweets, poured teas donated by the St. James Tea Room, and held a hat and glove contest. I got to judge. Now think about it --this is a sci fi convention. What kinds of hats and gloves would come to a formal tea? My favorite was the young girl who made up her face -- she painted a vampire mouth around her own mouth -- you should see what it looked like when she slowly widened her own mouth -- and eyes above her eyes. It was so cool.

We also had a drawing for books donated by the authors present.

Highlights:

I met Gordon Garb, who was involved in the early days of CGI. And he knows someone who might be willing to work on my short film with payment deferred!

Highlight:

The panel: GETTING BEYOND THE FIRST 100 PAGES: SPEED BUMP AHEAD with Ben Bova, Richard E. Peck, David Weber and Walter Jon Williams. There were differing opinions on this one -- which always makes for a fun panel. Plus they talked about all kinds of write's problem, not just the first 100 page thing. I got several useful tidbits from this one.

This was a great con for me. It was relaxing and I got to see a lot of my new New Mexico friends.

Now, back to my list from Worldcon. I've got work to do!

Random quote of the day:


"I don't want any yes-men around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth even if it costs them their jobs."

—Sam Goldwyn






( Illustrated version. )

bogwitch and I were chatting, and I had an idea. It's a challenge!

Either here, or in your own LJ, post an old picture of you in all your ancient and different glory! Did you used to look different?

I'm not shy; I'll do it.



Me, in the summer of 1989. Tons of hair! Giant glasses! Drippy earrings! Silver collar! And the scariest thing you can't even see: those are turquoise blue harem pants. It was the last hurrah of the 80s!

It's strange to think that the vast majority of my life was spent under long hair. The short hair is relatively recent. As recently as this past winter, I had a giggle when I found myself reaching to tug nonexistent hair up out of the back of my coat.

Poll #1247978 Possessions
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Possessions…

*Thanks to Eric Hoffer, Elizabeth I, Anna C. Brackett, George H. W. Bush, Ben Elton, and Epictetus.

The sun is shining, the mosquitoes are breeding, and after 48+ hours of no electricity I'm back at home with a garbage can of rotting food from the refrigerator. (Thanks to Mom for taking care of that while I was trying to reach the insurance company!)

There is still a tree leaning against my house but it's a nice tree, solid, unmoving, and as long as it doesn't shift a few inches onto the power line, I think I'm good.

For an entertaining look at the question "Why do people wade outside in storms?" be sure to check out Kristin Cashore's latest post over here.

How I spent my tropical storm vacation: hunkering down with my parents, watching the Olympics, and finishing a story. I read the August issue of Realms of Fantasy as well as two good online reads: Sarah Kanning's Sex with Ghosts at Strange Horizons and Lucy A. Snyder's Through Thy Bounty at Apex Online. The Kanning story is a great look at privacy (or not) in the workplace and in our lives, while the Snyder story is gruesome and vivid (not for the faint of stomach) and a success at mixing science fiction and horror, which is harder (in my opinion) than mixing fantasy and horror.

Of interest: The Swivet on word counts.

Last night, after the typing day was done and I was relaxing a little bit, I found myself sacked out on the couch with The Two Towers HD on the television as background noise while I played Final Fantasy IV on the DS. And I laughed, because honestly, how at any point in my life could I have seriously thought about becoming a doctor?

Other detritus: I'm about halfway finished my thesis-like object, and I'm tearing my hair out over a story revision.

Onward!

 Women Writers Worldwide Fiction Short-Short Writing Contest: Open to ALL writers, men and women.  Seeking frightfully creepy and eerily twisted stories. Winning entries revealed on website on Halloween Day. 1500 word limit, deadline Oct. 1. $10 entry fee. First place wins $250 and enrollment in WWW's Celestial Contest. 

The slightly cornball ad in The Writer's Chronicle states: Let us scare away the year's economic gloom and doom attitudes & get back on track with some fun! Try your hand at the exaggerated whisper, with an ending that is really too incredible, or create a terrifying plot with a pussy-cat ending--it was only a nightmare... or was it? 

See Women Writers Worldwide

I was talking to somebody the other day -- just small talk, an acquaintance sort of thing. She was about... oh... I'm going to say 22 or 23. And she started talking about Facebook, and said, "I don't know if you know what that is, but it's this social networking thing on the computer that people my age use."

How cute!

But I've slipped into dinosauriousness!

Anyone going to NY is Book Country on Sept. 21st? I'm going to be at the publishing pavilion for Oceanview, so if you're around please stop by.

Also, I have no problem breaking free of my duties to wander, meet some authors, and get something to eat. In other words, come for a visit, and I'll buy you lunch!

I grew enamored of doing panoramas like this because I've always been a big fan of David Hockey's photographic assemblages. I like the rough cut feel of putting them together like this, the tension of the varying angles and light.

I was looking through the panoramas of my 2004 trip to Britain and realized that of the 10 or so panorama shots I'd done, every last one of them was of some place in Cornwall. Cornwall was just that kind of place, I guess. I have no idea if this is going to work since one of these is FREAKING HUGE, so I'll put it behind a cut and hope for the best.

( Panoramalama. )

So, I was just eating ice cream and daydreaming (or as Piers Anthony might say, nightmaring), and the "Zombie" Question of the Day came to mind.

Since a person's spirit (in the fantastical world of fiction) turns into a ghost when he dies, what happens if the person becomes a zombie? Does the zombie have a ghost? Can the zombie and the ghost co-exist? Is the human ghost upset by the fact that his body is now a zombie because the ghost can't enter the NeverNever until the zombie is killed?

Thoughts?

Random quote of the day:


"You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom."

—Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements




( Illustrated version. )

September 4, 1995

[According to Wikipedia, the IMDb opened up for business in 1990, but I didn't know about it at the time of this entry. This is rather funny in light of that, but whatevs. And I should warn you, this was in the full flower of my filmmie days, so there's a lot of that sort of thing going on here. ::sigh::]

I stayed up late last night watching an old silent film on Turner Classic Movies. I was channel surfing and became fascinated by it. I switched to the Cable Prevue Guide to find out it was called The Chess Player. Set in Poland when it was in the thrall of Catherine the Great and Russia, it centered around a young man named Boleslas who tried to lead a rebellion. The rebellion is crushed and a badly injured Boleslas is whisked off to the home of the quirky artist/inventor of automatons Baron von Kempelen and his lovely ward, Sophie, who’s about sixteen or seventeen and thinks she’s in-love with a young Russian officer named Serge, who is, coinkydinkily, Boleslas’ best friend. To keep Boleslas safe from the Russians who are searching everywhere for him, Baron von K. incorporates Boleslas into one of his automatons, a chess player. Then things really go to hell.

We would later learn that Sophie, who loves Poland and wants it free, is really a Russian princess who Catherine had spirited away to Baron von K. sixteen years earlier, but I have no idea why. She also snaps out of her looniness and realizes, as any sensible girl would, that she actually loves Boleslas. All of this happened before I tuned in and I was able to piece it together as I watched. What kept me watching was 1) I like silent movies and you don’t always get opportunities to watch them on TV; 2) very interesting art direction; 3) the quirky automatons, which were surreal, wonderful, fabulist; 4) the alternately fine and absurd style of the acting; and 5) the amazing beauty of the actor playing Boleslas.

How to describe him? He had a face rather like the actor who played in Abel Gance’s Napoléon, but I don’t think it was him. [No, it wasn't. That was Albert Dieudonné.] He had long, straight black hair; a strong, prominent nose; a firm jawline, and beautiful, large dark eyes. Ah, he was lovely. He looked a bit like Caius [one of my characters], but not exactly. Anyway, I have no idea who he is and it’s driving me crazy. [Ah, IMDb, how I love you.] They ran no credits at the end (an abomination!), only credits telling who’d done the restoration work. So odd to think he’s probably very, very old or dead now. He was one of those presences that stepped right off the screen: a Purple Rose of Cairo kind of guy...

[MILD SPOILER ALERT IN CASE ANYONE PLANS TO SEE THIS.]
It was a very nice film, with a great scene of automatons wreaking automatic revenge on the villain. And although the young lovers seem to be okay at the end, it’s not settled 100% exactly, and there are other things that make it not a typically rosy American ending.
[END SPOILERS.]

“Oh please, darling, don’t scold me,” just came wafting in here from the other room. TCM is playing some 1930s-vintage movie right now. Where did they all learn that funny Englishoid accent? I can’t believe people actually talked like that anywhere in the States. “Oh, come along darling, don’t lets waste the whole evening . . .”


[Note: the actor playing Boleslas who I was so earnestly seeking was Pierre Blanchar. I can still recommend this film highly, even though my hormones have calmed down. An odd and fabulist and skiffy experience.]

[And I still think it's an abomination not to run the credits at the end of movies shown on TV.)

John McCain is a gelatinous cube. Yay!

From swivetfeed.