Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad loiters in Reno

Inflated medical bills mask true cost of care — One man’s case illustrates the problem: His medicine to treat Crohn’s disease runs the hospital about $6,300 per dose. But the bill he gets is for $38,000. This is very true of my cancer treatments.

Case Study: How a notorious spammer was brought down via Twitter

Europeans are taking the asteroid threat seriously

Earth’s moon may be millions of years younger than thought

Zakaria: Conservatism has lost touch with reality — An older one I missed. (Snurched from tongodeon.)

Stop Coddling the Super-Rich

Why Rick Perry Won’t Unite the Republican Party

Crashing the Tea Party — Gosh, the allegedly independent, grass-roots Tea Party is made of white Republicans. Who knew?

Are Ryan and Bachmann Qualified to Be President? No, Not Really

?otD: Coffee, tea or me?

8/18/2011
Writing time yesterday: 2.75 hours (5,500 words on Sunspin)
Body movement: 30 minute urban walk
Hours slept: 6.25 hours (solid)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: The Magician King by Lev Grossman

Tags: Cancer, healthcare, Links, Personal, Politics, Science

Posted: 7:56 am Thu August 18 2011 | Comments(2) |

[travel|awards] Heading for the Hugos

I’m off to Reno shortly. Won’t be around the con much today, as I figure I’ll spend most of it in my room, recovering my energy from travel stress. Look for me starting tomorrow. I’ll be there…

In other news, yesterday I had my head Hugo’d.

Looking like a low-rent superhero

The rocket is painted on

The final product

We’ll see how it holds up with my minimal head fuzz.

Photos © 2011, Joseph E. Lake, Jr. and JD.

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

Tags: Awards, Conventions, Funny, Photos, Travel

Posted: 5:09 am Wed August 17 2011 | Comments(3) |

[help] Looking for info on genre-friendly college English programs

This is signal boost for a friend, who will pick up feedback here in comments.

Amongst the manifold experiences of my trusty readers, can you all recommend a list of which college English departments are SFF friendly? A student who is applying for college wants to be a creative writing and/or English major, and is also a budding fantasy novelist — and definitely wants to be writing genre fantasy, not “literary” fantasy. While my friend is aware of some of the few graduate programs that are genre-friendly, can the mighty blogospheric brain offer some comments on undergraduate programs?

Many thanks.

Tags: Culture, Help, Writing

Posted: 5:05 am Wed August 17 2011 | Comments(6) |

[photos] Your Wednesday moment of zen

Your Wednesday moment of zen.

Church tower, Santa Fe, NM. © 2007, 2011, 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.

Tags: Photos, zen

Posted: 4:55 am Wed August 17 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad leaves home once more

Cancer’s Secrets Come Into Sharper Focus

Study: Oxygen appeared earlier on Earth

Rethinking The Riots; How Do We Really See Class?

Amid Rise of Multiculturalism, Dutch Confront Their Questions of Identity

What Obama Can Learn From Harry Truman

Who’s Really Responsible For U.S. Debt Downgrade — The GOP is now pretending that they never said default was no big deal. As usual, Your Liberal Media is dutifully reporting the latest GOP talking points as if they were true. Here’s a bunch of Republican pols on the record.

Is Rick Perry a ’sucker,’ or was he just lying? — It seems far likelier, in other words, that Rick Perry didn’t get suckered by this urban legend, but was retelling it to his audience in order to sucker them — to sucker them into supporting his candidacy, to sucker them into thinking that government is always their enemy, and to sucker them into thinking that unfettered, unregulated giant corporations are their friends.

?otD: Reno?

8/17/2011
Writing time yesterday: 1.25 hours (2,600 words on Sunspin)
Body movement: n/a (airport walking to come)
Hours slept: 6.75 hours (solid)
Weight: 226.8
Currently reading: The Magician King by Lev Grossman

Tags: Cancer, Culture, healthcare, Links, Personal, Politics, Science, UK

Posted: 4:55 am Wed August 17 2011 | Comments(3) |

[writing] Further progress is made

4,400 words on Sunspin yesterday. Accomplished writer feels accomplished. Plus had a fun writing date with my friend S—.

I almost certainly won’t get as much crammed down today, due to needing to pack for Reno after Day Jobbery, plus a trip to the stylist. Still, it felt good to let the words stretch out and run. Plus I got to bring a new major character onstage yesterday (yes, 140,000 words into the book and I’m introducing another POV). Which was fun. He begins his first scene by waking up, which will get me roundly cudgeled in any writing workshop. Except when it works, it works. Nyah. So there.

Also went to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes last night with my friend H—. An entertaining but not especially rigorous film. I was struck by the fact that while chimp and other great ape attacks are often extremely violent and maiming in real life, if not fatal, in the movie they seemed to satisfy themselves with clubbing their opponents and moving on, like pro wrestlers. I suppose ripping hands and faces off might have been a bit much for the movie, but it made the apes feel less real to me.

Busy day, busy Jay. Tomorrow, I’m off to Reno, though I’ll likely be laying low the rest of the day to recover from the trip. I don’t have nearly as much physical energy as I like to pretend to these days, on the cusp between surgery and more chemotherapy.

Tags: Books, Cancer, Conventions, health, Movies, Sunspin, Travel, Writing

Posted: 5:47 am Tue August 16 2011 | Comments(2) |

[photos] Your Tuesday moment of zen

Your Tuesday moment of zen.

Shop fronts, Santa Fe, NM. © 2007, 2011, 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.

Tags: Photos, zen

Posted: 5:40 am Tue August 16 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad gears up for Reno

Nice guys earn less, study finds — This explains a lot about my business career.

Law grads sue school, say degree is ‘indentured servitude’

Some in Lizzie Borden’s Hometown Think Her Legend Is Out of Whack

Radioactive sulfur in California ‘not a problem’ say scientists

Astronaut Snaps Spectacular Meteor Photo From Space

Are Keyboards on Laptops the Next Thing to Go? — Infinitely re-configurable virtual keyboards with haptic feedback could do everything conventional input devices do — and so much more. This pushes my “hey, you kids, get off my lawn!” buttons.

Deloot London: The Opposite of a Boycott

Bachmann and Qualifications — Conservative commentator Daniel Larison on Michele Bachmann.

Liberalism is a Mental Disorder — If you have a paid vacation or a 40-hour workweek, thank liberals. If you’re a woman who votes, thank liberals. If your child has an education, thank liberals. If you drink clean water and breathe clean air, thank liberals. What have conservatives brought you except market crashes and richer rich?

GOP Candidates Sign Pledge to Create Anti-gay Witch Hunt Commission — Very nice. Because free speech is only for straight, white conservatives, apparently. (Via @twilight2000.)

?otD: How many twofers in your Tuesday?

8/16/2011
Writing time yesterday: 2.0 hours (4,400 words on Sunspin)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.25 hours (solid)
Weight: 227.2
Currently reading: The Magician King by Lev Grossman

Tags: Cool, Culture, gay, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Tech, UK

Posted: 5:40 am Tue August 16 2011 | Comments(2) |

[writing] A Sunspin milestone, a bullet dodged

Yesterday I finished out section vi of Sunspin with a long, strong writing day of 3,600 words. Sunspin is divided into three volumes (currently), each volume is broken into three acts, and each act is broken into three sections. Each of those sections is approximately 20,000 words long.

This makes a nice, digestible arrangement wherein I can have subordinate writing goals. If I’m keeping to my production targets, 20,000 words is a week’s worth of writing, plus or minus a day or two. In this case, seven writing days over eight elapsed days. Each section has its own narrative and dramatic arc, advances the characters and the story, etc. It is also my hope that this scheme will provide a reading structure in the finished book.

Of course, this may be much subject to revision before Sunspin ever sees print. La agente is concerned that the individual volumes are too long, at 180,000-200,000 words each in first draft. There will either be a fair amount of editorial trimming, or possibly a resplit of the planned three volumes into four somewhat more manageable volumes. Or maybe they’ll just be big. I don’t know yet.

What I do know is that I’m on pace with the book. I may not make my month-end deadline to have the finished volume in to la agente, thanks to the interruptions of Worldcon and chemo session five, but if so I’ll only miss by a few days. A far cry from my original production plan for the year, but cancer will do that to you.

As for cancer and me, I woke up yesterday with joint aches and a pain in my throat, as well as slight congestion. Fearing the onset of a cold or worse, I cancelled my plans for the day, and once I’d written on Sunspin a while spent the rest of the day horizontal in my easy chair. I did something I haven’t done in ages, which is read an entire book in one day — Lev Grossman’s The Magicians. I enjoyed the book a lot, but in an odd way, the fantasy angle was almost incidental to what I see Grossman as doing with the characters. If Quentin had been in law school then joined the Peace Corps before getting caught up in a coup in some African backwater, it would have been almost exactly the same story.

I also finally decided that what was troubling me was general body aches from fatigue, and the congestion is down to very mild seasonal allergies. Being sick going into Worldcon and the Hugos would have been awful.

Tags: Awards, Books, Cancer, Conventions, health, reviews, Sunspin, Writing

Posted: 5:39 am Mon August 15 2011 | Comments(0) |

[photos] Your Monday moment of zen

Your Monday moment of zen.

Shop fronts, Santa Fe, NM. © 2007, 2011, 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.

Tags: Photos, zen

Posted: 5:22 am Mon August 15 2011 | Comments(0) |