Walked to the gym next door to my hotel through the 20 degree weather and the falling snow. (Forecast was 12 degrees, so this is an improvement.) Day Jobbery today, Omaha Beach Party tonight. And of course, what Bear calls post-novel ennui. But the projects, they beckon…
What are you doing today?
Posted: 6:14 am Tue November 30 2010 | Comments(5) |
Your Tuesday moment of zen.
Icicles, photographed by the_child. © 2007, 2010, B. Lake.
This work by B. Lake is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Posted: 6:11 am Tue November 30 2010 | Comments(0) |
Fantasy with an Artist Spotlight: Jay Lake and Shannon Page — A joint interview with calendula_witch and me.
shsilver on the forthcoming release of Love and Rockets — With fiction from calendula_witch and me.
A reader reacts to METAtropolis
SF Signal reviews Is Anybody Out There? — With four stars for my Sunspin story, “Permanent Fatal Errors”.
Vintage ad: Arrow men’s shirts, 1949 — Oh, man, the cultural messaging in this one…
A Supercell Thunderstorm Cloud Over Montana — APOD with, um…wow. Just wow.
A firehose of global warming news, both good and bad — Much like evolution denialism, this is another of those conversations that a rational society would not even be having in the first place.
?otD: What’s your favorite book review?
11/30/2010
Writing time yesterday: 4.0 hours (10,600 new words on Kalimpura, to a first draft wrap at 106,300.)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.0 hours (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a
Yesterday’s chemo/post-op stress index: 4/10 (peripheral neuropathy, emotional distress)
Currently reading: Between books
Posted: 6:09 am Tue November 30 2010 | Comments(1) |
Well, that’s a wrap on the first draft of Kalimpura at 106,300 words. (10,600 today to finish it up.) I’m about 10,000 words short of where I expected to end this draft, but that’s an acceptable margin of error. I know from prior projects that I start writing very quickly near the finish, and have a tendency to rush the endings. As calendula_witch reminds me, that’s what revision is for. So I expect to get most of that ‘missing’ wordage back when I re-enter this project next April or so for revision, with an expected turn-in to casacorona and Tor in June of next year.
For the neepery of it, I wrote 103,000 words in November, starting from a 3,300 word stub I’d written in mid-October before my mother fell ill. Counting one thing and another, including my own bout of depression, those 103,000 words were written over 21 writing days. Including 20,800 in the last two days. Did I mention that I start writing very quickly near the finish?
So in the drawer with this a while, though I’ll be begin gathering initial feedback from calendula_witch and possibly a few other readers. I have a novella to revise, a novella to write, a short piece or two to tackle, then by January I expect to be into Sunspin.
So it goes.
Posted: 6:29 pm Mon November 29 2010 | Comments(1) |
Well, I’m off to Omaha. Got through TSA at PDX without any enhanced procedures. Ahem. We’ll see how the flying goes now that winter is almost upon the air transit system.
Next week’s business trip to Minneapolis has been cancelled, btw.
Y’all play nice while I’m gone.
Posted: 5:31 am Mon November 29 2010 | Comments(1) |
Your Monday moment of zen.
Pas de Chat and Apsara, two of the_child’s cats, both now deceased. © 2007, 2010, B. Lake.
This work by B. Lake is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Posted: 5:28 am Mon November 29 2010 | Comments(0) |
Popular Science, August, 1923 — Would you fly in this thing?
Natural Selection in Homo sapiens alchemis — Steven Popkes takes on Harry Potter. Snerk.
Harvard scientists reverse the ageing process in mice – now for humans — Harvard scientists were surprised that they saw a dramatic reversal, not just a slowing down, of the ageing in mice. Now they believe they might be able to regenerate human organs. (Via
US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomatic crisis — Hmmm.
?otD: How friendly are your skies?
11/29/2010
Writing time yesterday: 4.25 hours (10,200 new words on Kalimpura.)
Body movement: airport walking to come
Hours slept: 5.5 hours (interrupted)
This morning’s weigh-in: 248.4
Yesterday’s chemo/post-op stress index: 5/10 (peripheral neuropathy, emotional distress)
Currently reading: Between books
Posted: 5:27 am Mon November 29 2010 | Comments(0) |
10,200 words today, over 4.25 hours, to 95,700. I’m into the major conflicts at the end, but this should take 15-20,000 more words to untangle before I can slide into home.
It’s nice to be back on the horse.
Some WIPpery for you all:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 6:18 pm Sun November 28 2010 | Comments(1) |
Of recent interest…
Act of Will by A.J. Hartley [ Powell's ] — I enjoyed this book a lot, but still can’t decide if I liked it. A young William Shakespeare-analog as superhero in a secondary world with some strong resemblances to Elizabethan England. Reminded me a lot of Shakespeare In Love in that the character and setting were just platforms for modern dialog, situations and internal narratives.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 [ imdb ] — A film adaptation of a cult favorite novel you may have heard about. Could just as easily been titled Harry Potter and the Wild Places of Great Britain, with occasional alarums and excursions. (Which, honestly, is about how I remember the book.) The action and plot-driving scenes of this movie would have made an excellent short film to watch over a long coffee break. On the other hand, about 100 million people will see this movie, so what do I know?
Posted: 8:06 am Sun November 28 2010 | Comments(1) |
Your Sunday moment of zen.
One of Portland’s ghost bikes. © 2006, 2010, 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.
Posted: 7:58 am Sun November 28 2010 | Comments(0) |