At Orycon, we had a panel intended to produce a piece of collaborative fiction within the hour of programming. This involved substantial audience participation and some fairly whacky behavior. Panelists were Brenda Cooper, Jay Lake, Theresa Reed, Ken Scholes and Ray Vukcevich.
As promised at that event, here is the story posted for general approbation:
( The story... )
Posted: 4:21 pm Wed December 03 2008 | Comments(0) |
This is a test post. In the event of a real post, you would not be informed that this is a test post. Talk amongst yourself.
ETA: Testing whether a post edit suppresses the LJ f-list view.
Posted: 3:58 pm Wed December 03 2008 | Comments(0) |
I am delighted to report that editor Rich Horton has selected my Tor.com short story, “A Water Matter“, for inclusion in the 2009 edition of Fantasy: The Best of the Year from Prime Books. My special thanks to Tor.com editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden for originally publishing the story.
I’m particularly excited about this because “A Water Matter” is in continuity with Green, and concerns the adventures of a major character during the midsection of the novel, when she is offstage from the primary narrative.
Posted: 6:09 am Wed December 03 2008 | Comments(0) |
Apropos of nothing in particular, does anybody have any idea what the oldest continuously maintained system on Earth is?
I’m thinking Chinese canals, Roman waterworks or bridges, and so forth; but the answer could be some more social or political, I suppose. The hierarchy of Judaism, for example.
Heck, does anyone want to take a shot at refining the question?
Posted: 5:43 am Wed December 03 2008 | Comments(1) |
The Fix reviews The Best of Abyss & Apex
Amazon Aims at Content Delivery — Interesting future state stuff.
APOD with a photo of the smiling heavens
Polar opposites — Some coverage of the possibly imminent (in geological terms) flipping of the Earth’s magnetic field. (Thanks to lt260.)
And for LJ readers, because flist display of my posts continues intermittently borked, something which I’m told wasn’t visible to everyone the first time:
If you’ve missed recent link salads, believe me, they’ve been there. Try this.
?otD: I want to know, have you ever seen the rain?
12/03/08
Body movement: 30 minutes on stationary bike
This morning’s weigh-in: 223.2
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville
Posted: 5:40 am Wed December 03 2008 | Comments(0) |
Now it can be told…
(Amusing stuff, at least in my opinion, but under a cut for medical TMI and reader mercy) Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 9:09 pm Tue December 02 2008 | Comments(4) |
After a rump session of the Fireside group tonight, HJ and I went to the Iron Horse for a quick, light dinner. He’s a pretty quiet guy, so it was nice to get to converse with him without the Olympic-class competitive talking that characterizes most writer gatherings.
I was laughing at myself as I got there, however, because I carried into the restaurant with me both my computer bag and the galleys of Green. This is because if I left them locked in the trunk — the Genre car is a convertible and I leave nothing that might look important or valuable to a meth-head in the passenger compartment, ever — and someone were to steal the car, the hassle of replacing the car would be a lot less than the hassle of re-marking up the manuscript and replacing the computer.
Which ought to tell you something about my priorities. And you should see me with a copy edited manuscript. Sooner I would part with my voolnerables than with a CEM.
Posted: 8:50 pm Tue December 02 2008 | Comments(1) |
This is a test. In the event of a real post, you would have been provided with wit and erudition, or possibly a deranged liberal-progressive political rant. You may shop as usual, there is no need to return to your homes.
ETA: I will not be cross-posting my twitters to my blog. My twitter feed will be receiving notifications of new blog posts. Fear not, loyal readers.
Posted: 3:38 pm Tue December 02 2008 | Comments(0) |
Interrupting Gelastic Jew has an interesting post today on life choices, body image and the whole diet/exercise thing. By curious coincidence, I dropped below 220 pounds this morning for the first time in over 20 years. That’s 65 pounds lost this year, officially, and eight inches dropped from my waistline in that same process.
I’m sympathetic to her comments about obsessiveness and choice. And I don’t think I’m obsessive about this stuff myself. (This from the guy who can take a two and a half hour walk at 3 am…) In my case, I got scared straight about the overall state of my health through my excellent cancer adventures last spring. Then I leveraged some metabolic changes arising from my colorectal surgery — specifically, as I seem to have utterly reset my sleep clock, I took the two hours gained in my life every day and dedicated a significant portion of it to exercise. Likewise I’ve maintained some core dietary changes initially forced on me for medical reasons.
Was that a sort of get-out-of-jail-free card? Yes, if you can bring yourself to think of cancer that way. I didn’t have to break and reform a set of habits. They were broken and reformed for me. Where my discipline has been applied is in not simply resetting to my pre-cancer lifestyle. I haven’t missed a day of exercise since I first crept back to the stationary bike for five minutes one morning last July. (The one exception is travel days, where I figure I take enough steps hiking through airports to make up for it.)
I don’t think I’ve become an evangelist for lifestyle change, except possibly by example. I certainly don’t have a case of the one-true-way-ism to which Interrupting Gelastic Jew refers. In fact, quite the opposite — I wouldn’t recommend my path to anyone. On the other hand, I quite like where it has taken me. Living well may be the best revenge, but it’s also the best argument, at least in this context.
And living inside my body is the only way to live.
Posted: 5:33 am Tue December 02 2008 | Comments(1) |
Wondermark on Rudolph as R. Clement Moore fanfic
Asher at The Guru Handbook on grading and concurrency — I’m more interested in the grading model Asher cites as applied to writers, both in a workshop environment and as a critical tool in the published world. There certainly are books and stories which can be identified as “first wave” and “second wave” — I’m not so sure if the reviewer step is better reflected in the critical/critiquing apparatus or in another layer of writing.
My new word for the day: Abugida — Picked it up while reading this fascinating piece on textual analysis being used to investigate the Mumbai terrorist attacks. (Specifically, the comments section, which is very good on this post.) From an auctorial perspective, the whole thing is worth reading if you write fiction about multilingual societies.
Fuel-cell powered devices getting closer — Mmm. Multiday batteries.
Injuries and Deaths Due to Firearms in the Home — For every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides. (Thanks to swan_tower.)
From my cell I scent the reeking soul of US justice — Conrad Black writes from prison. (Thanks to danjite.)
Obama Birth Certificate Rears Its Head - Again — Mmm. I can smell the bipartisanship from all the way over here. Because there’s nothing Republicans love more than a good, enraging lie. Keeps the base energized, donchaknow. This is like Whitewater, it will never go away. (Thanks to lt260.)
Jones at NSC; Even knows French (Eat your Heart out Tom DeLay) — I’m posting this one mostly for the headline, which I find hilarious, but it’s also a discussion of Obama’s new National Security Advisor.
This Modern World with a brief (and sadly fictional) history of the past eight years
?otD: Why oh, why oh, why oh; did I ever leave Ohio?
12/02/08
Body movement: 30 minutes on stationary bike
This morning’s weigh-in: 220.8
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville
Posted: 5:24 am Tue December 02 2008 | Comments(0) |
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