[links] Link salad wants to go back to sleep
Stretching My Legs — Me guest blogging again at Tor.com.
The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile patent — With bonus Wienermobile links!
Two Angles on Meteorites — More really cool Deep Time stuff from Centauri Dreams.
Dunhuang Star Atlas — Ancient Chinese star map from APOD. Now this is just darned cool.
A Skin Test for Alzheimer’s Disease — Wow.
Did anyone get the number of that Erdos? — xkcd with some deep math geekery.
Ghost Jams — We get those in Portland. I’ve seen one at 2 am on the Banfield.
Tags: cars, Cool, Funny, health, Links, Personal, Process, Science, Writing
Posted: 1:59 am Fri June 19 2009 | Comments(0) |
[travel] Bad karma chickens laying scrambled eggs
Slept short, hard and not very well. Horrible thunderstorm roaming around here in Omaha at 3 am. Highway was actually rather dangerous due to heavy standing water and strong crosswinds. My feet are soaked. Airline checkin opened late. SFO connection boards 10 minutes after I arrive, which is made of Grade A fail. Not to mention SFO’s runway problems of late. Tried to reroute, everything’s overbooked. Some woman pushed past me in the security line. Basically, the day is borked. Good thing I have a book to write, and a laptop to write it on.
Tags: California, Omaha, Travel, Writing
Posted: 1:50 am Fri June 19 2009 | Comments(0) |
[writing] Graphomania continues
So I was real tired last night. (Gee, I wonder why?) So I went to bed early. So I woke up early, just after 3 am. So I went for a walk. So I came back to my hotel room and wrote for two hours before heading out for the day jobbe. So that’s another 4,200 words on Endurance.
It’s a sickness, I tell you.
Tags: Endurance, Omaha, Personal, work, Writing
Posted: 4:25 am Thu June 18 2009 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad with another day at work
I have audio flash up at the new StarShipSofa — Enjoy!
10 Things You Always Wanted To Know About Robot Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask) — (Thanks to someone who should probably remain nameless…)
Save your eyes, use your goggles
“Human”-Faced Missing Link Found in Spain? — As said when he sent me the link, Out of Europe?
The story of the tell-tale tail
?otD: More green than blue?
6/18/2009
Body movement: 30 minute suburban walk, 10 minutes of stretching and meditation
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a (in hotel)
Currently reading:
The Human Disguise by James O’Neil
Tags: Cool, Funny, Links, Personal, podcasts, Science, stories, Tech
Posted: 1:32 am Thu June 18 2009 | Comments(0) |
[writing] Endurance progriss riport, day 5
Thanks to some early morning graphomania, a half hour on my lunch break, and some room time this evening, I’ve managed three hours of drafting today, laying down 7,500 new words to a total of 22,400. I could probably write more tonight, but I’m beginning to push the quality envelope and I don’t want to burn up my current enthusiasm. And as says, dragons start to appear.
I’m eventually aiming for a 135,000 word finished book, but I strongly suspect I’m heading for a 170,000 – 200,000 word first draft. The pace is relaxed. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, and cuts within a single-threaded first person POV aren’t as hard to manage as, say, cuts within a six-threaded interlaced plot third person POV.
:: koff :: koff ::
Besides, I know what I’m aiming for.
Tomorrow I have the Omaha Beach Party after work (Zio’s, 76th & Dodge, if you’re in the area, around 6 pm), and packing to light out for the territories on Friday morning, so catching my two hours may be problematic. I think I’ll try going to sleep a little earlier in hopes of rising in time to exercise and log at least 90 minutes before work. A decent night’s sleep will clear out the dragons and fuel the god-riddled confrontations which loom in Green’s immediate future.
Meanwhile, some more WIP:
A short woman with cinnamon colored skin placed a basket of cardamom-scented butter rolls in front of me. Suddenly I was hungry beyond measure. Had the smell drawn me? I nodded at her, whispered “kava, with cream,” in my gruffest tone, and fell to.
What with one thing and another – riot, revolution, godhead – I have rarely found time to practice my baking. I am a good hand with breads, thanks to Mistress Tirelle, who did her best to make the most of what could me made of my enslavement in the Pomegranate Court. It was not just my empty stomach or the demands of the baby, I was sure, that led me to find these pastries the most delicious I had ever eaten.
Tags: Books, Calendula, Endurance, Process, Writing
Posted: 4:57 pm Wed June 17 2009 | Comments(1) |
[writing] Endurance
Woke up this morning around 4 am with Endurance much on my mind. I cut my walk to half an hour, though I kept my stretching and meditation sequence, to spend more time in the book before Day Jobbery. Managed to get 3,500 words down in 90 minutes of writing, broken in the middle for a quick brekkie downstairs. I’ll write more tonight, after a work dinner, so I can peg my two-hour mark for the day.
I am very conscious of deadlines and time here. The cancer stuff will quite probably catch up to me before I can finish this draft, but at the moment I’m still running ahead of the incoming tidal wave. I’m not sure I’ve ever been this motivated to sprint. The book won’t be due until next May, but if I can get the first draft pounded out this summer, all I have to do during (or after) chemo is work the rewrites.
As Samuel Johnson said, “Nothing focuses the mind like a hanging.”
Tags: Books, Cancer, Endurance, Writing
Posted: 4:34 am Wed June 17 2009 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad takes a walk
SF Signal‘s “Mind Meld” on real life places that inspire fantastical world building — In which I discuss, among other things, Bulgaria.
Puttin’ on daubs. — Art writing guru James Gurney on how art happens one tiny bit at a time. You sure gotta know where to put them daubs words.
9 Chickweed Lane name checks the state of Nebraska — I probably shouldn’t be laughing at this, but I am.
The French Aérotrain — Scroll down a bit to see it. Also, the prototype pictured at Wikipedia is deeply awesome.
Ice XV discovered — Man, I missed ice-9!
?otD: How green is your valley?
6/17/2009
Body movement: 30 minute suburban walk, 10 minutes of stretching and meditation
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a (in hotel)
Currently reading:
The Human Disguise by James O’Neil
Tags: Cool, Funny, Links, Omaha, Personal, Process, Science, Tech, trains, Writing
Posted: 2:16 am Wed June 17 2009 | Comments(0) |
[writing] Endurance progriss riport, day 4
Two and a half hours of writing on Endurance today, 4,800 words, to a manuscript total of 14,900 so far.
The WIP:
Winded, but safe, I stopped in an empty lot near the old wall. A firecart offered meat sticks, while the strange little people who lived atop this section of wall passed in abundance on their own errands. No Selistani were in evidence.
I fished out a copper tael and bought a length of some birdflesh. I didn’t ask, and the man did not say. It tasted mostly of charring, and a bit of sage, but that was good enough for me. My hands were busy and I looked as if I might belong there.
Truly, I needed to stop wearing black leather. It was like a fart in a Temple service – marking me out and making people stare. I resolved to purchase a colored wrap at the very next opportunity, and decide later how to be safely anonymous.
Tags: Books, Endurance, Writing
Posted: 4:18 pm Tue June 16 2009 | Comments(0) |
[cancer] Early morning thoughts
Took a long walk this morning, 70 minutes. The owl that lives along the eastern end of the Big Papio Trail had a lot to say, while the moon hid all but the barest hint of her face behind a high lace of clouds.
I don’t tend to do directed thinking while I’m exercising. It’s more like moving meditation. Some stuff bubbling about Endurance, obviously. More cancer. Fear and worry not from the deep layers — not The Fear, in other words — but of the more intellectual kind. How much will this hurt? How will it affect my job? What about the people who love me?
No answers, course. Those will come as needed, in their time. I roll around in the tough stuff, so that when the hammer comes down, I’m ready for it. No point in wishing it away.
Tags: Cancer, Endurance, Personal
Posted: 3:11 am Tue June 16 2009 | Comments(1) |
[links] Link salad wakes up in the Midwest again
Jumping Off the Cliff, Looking for Water on the Way Down — Me at Tor.com, on the process of creating a novel.
Full Bodied with bonus topic cleavage! — Green is so proud.
The infinitely receding future — Tom Tomorrow on working for exposure.
Stephane Halleux’s wonderful steampunk sculptures — Very nice.
Carried down the bay — Screw pile lighthouses?
The story of Schroedinger’s cat (an epic poem) — A Straight Dope classic.
“Burning Walls” May Stop Black Hole Formation — Some heavy iron SFnal stuff from Technology Review.
A Longer Life for Earth’s Biosphere? — More heavy iron from Centauri Dreams. Deep time rocks!
?otD: Why?
6/16/2009
Body movement: 70 minute suburban walk, 10 minutes of stretching and meditation
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a (in hotel)
Currently reading:
The Human Disguise by James O’Neil
Tags: Art, Books, Cool, Funny, Green, Links, Personal, Photos, Process, Publishing, Science, Writing
Posted: 2:56 am Tue June 16 2009 | Comments(0) |
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