barbhendee

I am so geeky and excited about this! Trisha Telep contacted me today to let me know that, not only is The Eternal Kiss available for purchase on audible.com, but the online sample is from my story!! *flails* I feel slighly ridiculous to be so excited by this, but honestly... hearing 'Falling to Ash' read by somebody online is just surreal. I love that the sample is from part way through the story, and we can hear some of Moth's confrontation with two kids on the Common.

The reader does such a great job! There's only one part in the short sample that made me cringe, but only because the way she reads it makes it sound like I wrote a sentence in a particular way, when I purposely wrote it to be read another way. But I'm not going to complain about an ignored full stop. I can live with that! ;) Hearing someone give Moth a voice is awesome - I love it!! *beams*

Here's a link to the sample on audible.co.uk. (I think it's easier to find on there.)

But just in case anyone in the US wants to purchase THE ETERNAL KISS as an audiobook, you can do so here.

Tweets from @Rob_Thurman (probably of a useless and irrelevant nature. Beware.)

09:05 #FF @lisashearin @marjoriemliu @dianapfrancis @mark_henry @shilohwalker @liketheriver1 @katrchrdson #

09:09 It's *so* hard to be beautiful in high school. #

09:10 And it's *so* hard to have a hot vampire boyfriend (except for the icy penis...no blood flow=penisicle) #

09:12 & it's *so* *so* *hard* that no one gets how *hard* it is, fighting yet submitting to a forbidden love...all while studying for a math test. #

09:13 Math is *so* hard. #

09:14 Off to rock Men Who Stare at Goats. No Goats, No Glory! #

09:51 paranormal penis pumps (cr) @magiuspendragon @Rob_Thurman Hmm, no blood flow also = no erection, how are all these vamps having sex?? #

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1. VNEART WAR #2 has gone off to the editor, only a month late. It's got good bones, but it needs to spend some time in the gym and spa, if you know what I mean. Thankfully, we have a good trainer. Now I get an hour to rest, and I have to start revisions for MUSTANG. Some day I will get a whole day of nothing but writing new stuff?

2. LIbco, whoever you are, sending people to spam the "Why do Catholics" post isn't going to win you any point. Conversations are treated with dignity, trolls and spam gets deleted.

3. I am amused to note that, on the story that was rejected, the editor found the first part intriguing and well-done. I note this because that very same opening got panned by a majority of my writers group, who didn't like it at all, for many of the reasons the editor DID like it.

Listen to advice, but trust your instincts.


And now I am away, possibly for much of the weekend. Play nice, y'all!

Word count: 3690 | Since last entry: 1502

Still plugging away on the YA fantasy. I feel my brain trying to impose plot, but I'm trying to continue just driving where my headlights can see.

holyoutlaw posted a video of a really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, happy dog (ETA: fixed link), to which I commented "I have never before heard Doppler shift on a squeeky toy." For this feat of scientific detection I have been named an Improbable Research Investigator. (Thanx to gerisullivan for the tip.)

I received a fat envelope from F&SF, which I tore open with great excitement. But it wasn't a contract... just a rejection with some suggestions on tightening the opening. Alas. (And no, it wasn't a subtle rewrite request.)

In his year-end round-up of Realms of Fantasy, ecbatan calls my "Joy is the Serious Business of Heaven" one of the best short stories in the magazine this year.

Artisan booksmith Todd Sanders is hand-making a few bound copies of my zeppelin story "Love in the Balance." You can see a picture of the work in progress here.

On Sunday November 29, I will be participating in Sci-Fi Authorfest III at Powell's Books in Beaverton. This multi-author booksigning event starts at 4:00 PM and includes lilithsaintcrow, camillealexa, barbhendee and jchendee, devonmonk, brendacooper, kriswrites and deanwesleysmith, anghara, lmarley, and others, plus the Cloud City Garrison of the 501st Imperial Legion.

The OryCon 31 program schedule has been posted. Gosh, that's only two weeks away!

This article by William Petrocelli is a must-read for all lovers (and producers) of books: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-petrocelli/not-a-simple-price-war_...

He says, in part: "Predatory pricing is a means of driving other booksellers out of business. When this happens, the choice of books is one of the first things to suffer. Some readers think that if their favorite store closes they can always buy the book they want somewhere else. But that's a dangerous delusion -- the books they want may not be there at all. In fact, these types of disruptions in how books are sold or distributed has a profound effect on what publishers decide to publish in the first place."

Yet another reason never to set foot in a WalMart.

I've been taking advantage of a week or so of relative down-time (before a new literary deluge hits), to review a trunk novel.  I had high hopes for reworking this beast - it has one of the strongest openings I've ever written, a character I dearly love, a message that I want to convey...

And a plot coincidence that I've now realized is insurmountable.

I toyed with ways to change things as I took a shower, walked to the subway, walked home from the subway, and fiddled around with other stuff - all afternoon.  So far, the only fixes I've figured out are even more coincidental.

So, for now, the trunk novel goes back to the trunk.

And I'm playing with a new project, for the few days remaining to me.

Mindy, sighing, and still fiddling

Exhibit opening & dinner tonight. Brunch tomorrow. BookViewCafe presentation tomorrow night. A bye on Sunday, thank the football gods. A business cocktail party on Monday, and a social one on Tuesday. And then Philcon, and the SFWA Reception, and then off to Boston the Wednesday after.

Eeeep?


Meanwhile, keeping to my promise to bring VINEART WAR #2 in under 110,000 words, the draft is at... 109,400. Go, me. Of course, no promises are made as to what it will look like once Mam'selle Editrix has her way with it...

High tides and the remnants of the tropical storm, plus a low front... all the makings, oh yeah. Already lost an (inexperienced) surfer to violent waves, as per this morning's news, and the wind's going to be a significant factor in getting around today.

If you're in a coastal zone, keep your boots on and your windows closed, 'k? The rest of us, stay as dry and un-buffeted as you can...



[I don't see this becoming a nor'easter of even minor legend -- unless the winds pick up significantly, it's just going to be an annoyance for most of us -- but it's not going to be fun, either)

About to hop on a plane and head west to San Francisco. Don't take any wooden pickles while I'm gone.

Your Friday moment of zen.



Williams Lake trail at Taos Ski Valley, NM, about 11,000 feet of altitude. © 2006, 2009 Joseph E. Lake, Jr.



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Call for masks — A way of sticking it to my cancer.

Strange Horizons reviews Green [ Powell's | Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | Borders ] — Not so much with the liking of the book. No, no, not at all. In great detail, at length with the not liking.

Mercado de San Marcos: 1890s

The Speed of Online Conversation — The Web, Twitter, and you.

Rosetta takes home some pictures — Bad Astronomy with some serious wow factor.

Backward star ain't from around here — Fun with astrography. (Snurched from the Twitter feed of @jstephenyork.)

Hoekstra Helps Al Qaeda — A Republican congressman gives aid and comfort to the enemy. Waiting for the media explosion... waiting... waiting... (Just as a thought experiment, imagine if Barney Frank had done this.)

?otD: How many dances can an angelhead pin?

---

11/13/2009
Body movement: n/a (airport walking)
Hours slept: 6.25
This morning's weigh-in: n/a (traveling)
Currently reading: The Jade Man's Skin by Daniel Fox

Tweets from @Rob_Thurman (probably of a useless and irrelevant nature. Beware.)

13:24 Drinking mango milkshakes with River from Vegas. That's right, bitches. Mango! That's how we bad-ass monster killers roll. #

13:50 And cowbell, because I got a fever, baby, and the prescription is more cowbell! @mark_henry You are truly metal, with your mango-ness. #

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"Single Ladies" as danced by John Barrowman

Well, today was not exactly made of win. We drove 50 miles in the remnants of Hurricane Ida to reach our client. We arrived early, made a coffee stop to kill a little time and prep for the meeting. Driving into the client site, my co-worker spilled a 16 oz latte on my pants and shoes. This was not good meeting prep, frankly. (Though the meeting went just fine.)

On the way back, we stopped for gas near the Philadelphia Airport. Weather was still wet and raw, and so due to my continuing efforts not to catch a respiratory illness, my co-worker got out to pump, and nearly got rolled by a dude in a black parka.

So, erm, just as glad to be safely back in my hotel room. Tomorrow, San Francisco and calendula_witch!

I've been thinking about the whole 'being a writer' thing. Partly because I just think about this stuff anyway, but mostly because I've been getting more and more emails and messages from people who want to write - maybe they even are writing - but they don't feel able to call themselves 'writers'. Almost as if there is a special club for Writers-with-a-capital-W... Writers.

Some people say: if you're not at a certain stage in the publication journey/process, or you don't have the right contacts, or if you don't meet conditions X, Y, Z, then you're not a 'real' writer.

I think this is wrong.

If you write, you are a writer.

If you are only just starting out, you are allowed to be a writer. You are entitled to try.

Even if you are just thinking about writing, that is totally okay. Having dreams is good and healthy. Of course if you want to (one day) be published, it would be good to start writing at some point in your life - but don't let anyone tell you that your dreams aren't valid or are worth less than someone else's.

Do you need someone to give you 'permission' to write? Who? Who - other than you - can give you permission to write? Only one person can make your dreams come true. You are in charge of whether or not you put pen-to-paper or fingers-to-keyboard. You certainly don't need me to tell you that it's okay for you to write, or that it's okay for you to want to write. Just so you know (in case there is any doubt) it's totally okay! ;)

Were you waiting for November 1st, for NaNoWriMo, but didn't join up after all? Or maybe you did join, but you've only written 457 words and we're already almost halfway through the month...

So what? Start anyway.

Start now.

You are a writer - so write.

Spent all day today trying to push through and get last details done and loose ends tied up, and I'm still not done, damn it. The yays today have seriously been outweighed by the boos. Thankfully they've all been of the minor pinch-boos rather than anything dire, so I'm going to call that a Yay.

I was kinda bummed to get a rejection in the mail on a short story -- never mind that I didn't think it would result in a sale first time out, you always, quietly, hope. Tomorrow, after some thought, it will go out again. Because that part of the game never changes.

EtA: and the best phrase of the day comes from Madame Editrix: "crises fairies" As in "The crises fairies are exhausted now, and will leave you alone."


So.. what's a major yay in the world? Anything? Come on, somebody's had to have had a YAY! day....

Notes augmented

We've enhanced and de-bugged Notes. If you haven't tried it yet, now's the time! You can create a private note when you ban multiple users. You can also delete multiple notes at once. Lastly, paid users have the option to add a note (visible only to you) whenever you add or remove a friend (guaranteed to avoid embarrassing social mishaps). If you don't currently have a paid account, you can upgrade now! It only takes a few minutes and costs less than a bad shopping mall haircut (plus, it's way more fashionable)!

Product tweaks and bug kill

1. In another effort to zap spam, comments containing links from domains LiveJournal deems untrustworthy are now automatically screened
2. If you sign up to get notifications of the Writer's Block question of the day, you'll now see the daily question in the email notification, so you'll have a little extra time to ponder before you post. You can subscribe to Writers Block notifications here
3. The issue causing random comments to vanish has been fixed!
4. If you visit a LiveJournal page and get prompted to log in, you'll be returned to the same page after you sign in (Thanks, Dreamwidth)!
5. If you don't edit the timestamp for an entry at all, the entry timestamp will indicate the time the entry was posted instead of the time the Update Journal page was loaded
6. Comments with paddings/backgrounds render correctly within the comment box (and will no longer wrap outside the box and break frames/margins)

New FCK fixes rich text editor!

1. We've updated our RTE (Rich Text Editor) to FCKeditor version 2.6.5
2. When switching from the RTE to HTML editor, links for syndicated feeds are no longer broken
3. RTE now functions properly in Safari 4.0
4. An extra line/space will not be auto-inserted whenever you switch from RTE to HTML editor
5. The insert image link now works correctly in all browsers

LiveJournal Cares

We’re pleased to introduce you to lj_cares, a new LiveJournal community dedicated to raising awareness and funds for U.S. charitable organizations that improve the health and well-being of people around the world. Each month, we’ll spotlight a nonprofit that is making a significant global impact through medical research, public outreach, and/or humanitarian social programs. Charities will be selected in accordance with the U.S. calendar of national health observances based on a high rating (of over 60%) on Charity Navigator and global scope of impact.

In this, our inaugural month of November, we will celebrate national adoption month by offering a charitable virtual gift (priced at $2.99) to support Love Without Boundaries, an organization that saves the lives of orphans with life-threatening diseases and places them in loving homes around the world. LiveJournal will donate 100% of the proceeds from the sale of charitable vgifts (we'll cover the cost of credit card transaction fees). To learn more about Love Without Boundaries, please visit lj_cares and read about how they helped save Baby Kang and the Rainbow Twins from fatal illnesses, who are now thriving in nurturing families. You can purchase your Love Without Boundaries gifts in the Virtual Gift shop.

Papered in postcards

A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in postcards to surround us with LiveJournal community. Thanks for coming through! We've received postcards all the way from Germany, Finland, and Canada and from all over the US, including Texas, Florida, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Indiana, Hawaii, and Oklahoma just to name just a handful. We're thrilled with our improved decor.

Please keep the love coming for one more week by writing to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be drawing the names of ten random contributors next Thursday to win paid account credits!

Photos of the week

We have more dazzling images posted by talented LiveJournal photographers from around the world. We're hoping to span the entire globe, so please continue posting and tagging. Of course, you can also sit back and enjoy the view at lj_photophile.

You can see a sample of this week's gorgeous photos and check out spotlight communities and awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

We thank you, once again, for joining us. See you next week!

When I'm very stressed out, I show it in specific ways. For example, I can't work a Sudoku puzzle. I make a lot of arithmetic errors. My sleep habits get wonky.

This is to say, I've been diligent about exercising lately, and I wake up on time, without the alarm clock even now, and can still work Sudokus. That's how I know that even in the face of emotional anguish, nonstop talking about it, and comfort eating, still much of the cancer stress is me processing stuff, rather than me cratering in the face of it.

When I stop being able to wake up on time is when the shit will really have hit the fan.

Your Thursday moment of zen.



Howard Waldrop at Rio Hondo. © 2006, 2009 Joseph E. Lake, Jr.



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.