I have a guest post up at Civilian Reader. It started as a riff on worldbuilding based on Roach's remarks on Illusion of Steel, but turned into something else thanks to Ursula Vernon (I quote the most relevant passage within the guest post, but you may want to follow through to her whole entry.)

Anyhow, here's the guest post.





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Cute stuff:

- JoJo managed to fall asleep in the pool during his mom's baby-and-me aquacize class. And he wasn't the only one.

- We just got him a suit (well, vest and top and tie set) and shoes for his baptism, which is coming up on Mother's Day. (The shoes will do for other purposes, but it's about time he had something other than winter boots and Robeez.) And crocs so he has something to play outdoors in. They seemed easier to put on and easier for him to walk in than rubber boots.

- Our friend Tiene came by with her baby, then babysat JoJo with her two kids, then came by for Jeff's party with her baby. Oh, lord, is that little girl CUTE. She's almost up there with Joseph.

Family Stuff:
- Had a nice dinner out AND a good party for my brother's birthday (With different friends at each).
- A close family friend just had her actual birthday and is going to have a celebration Friday.
- Next up, mom and Colin. And two more (Tiene, above, and Brannie) soon after. Tis the season...

Weather Crap:
- Saturday was LOVELY. Sunday was pretty nice. So far, that's all we've had of Spring. It's back around freezing. And went from rain to snow well before sunset.
_ F*** this. We've had April and May snows often enough before, there's a reason they usually advise not to plant before Victoria Day (Mid-to-late May for non-Canucks) but most of the time, it's snowing on top of long thawed ground and the first green grass and bulbs. Prior to this last weekend, it was snowing on top of snow. (And some mud from melt, but too much snow...)
- I'll grant, you, the slow thaw is why we're less afraid than we might be of huge flooding.

Writing:
- not as much as I ought. Taking steps to improve this.

Reading:
- Getting through Shattered Pillars. Enjoying much. Started For Elise, a self published family history of a friend from church, which will require some review, I think, because it's of WAY more general interest than that first sounds like.

Augh:
- Hope I'm just run down from shopping, weather changes and too little sleep. Starting to feel like possible bug, though. Will be sleeping soon as I'm finished this note and cleaned up some hairballs (The cats have their own way of heralding Spring. Unfortunately.)


...
- Back off the pill as of Sunday night. Not sure I'm ready, not sure I'm not.

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of sorts. bighairyviking being my long-ago adopted little brother. We haven't seen each other as much lately, alas: Me having a JoJo to deal with and he having a bunch of house-prepping and house-moving related stuff. I *did* get out with sun_in_her_hair not too long ago, to go swimming with her and her own semi-adopted not-really-family-but-family-anyway niece Melly.

But now they officially have their Billy. Or as they put it, "We made a person!":

William Donald (mom's surname)



I do hope I can visit soon, though I'm not sure whether taking JoJo along would be good or not - one the one hand they like kids, on the other hand, i want to be one of those useful visitors (and do dishes or sweep or bring food) or a very brief visitor, and the former is made much more difficult if towing a 17 month old along, especially as JoJo sometimes attempts a tantrum right now (It's usually not terribly effective, but I have been reminding myself I have to consciously choose my responses, not go with whatever I'm planning to do anyhow.)

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Life for me continues apace. Good get-togethers with friends, much JoJo time, too much computer time (that isn't writing time), some swimming, some exercise, And too much ******* snow

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A thorough takedown of the date rape excuse "She didn't really say no" "I didn't understand"

Can't say no? You're not alone

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How am I?

I'm 5-10 cm of snow predicted on April 15th. That's how I am.

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JoJO had a cold - nothing serious, not much changed in the house. Other than that, the only change is that we're going to Pan Am twice a week for activities in the pools. Life goes on.

Cold Magic - Kate Elliott

Awesome worldbuilding, good characters, complex storyline, obvious first in a trilogy (Book three is coming out in June so don't let this put you off.)

In an alternate Europe (in which Rome didn't fall, at least not the same way, and the Manse people from the former empire of Mali make a large part of the population - as well as Cat's own Phoenician people) Cat Hassi-Barahal, along with her cousin Bee, is a student learning about the new sciences - gas lighting and airships - at her college. Bee is having odd dreams, which she records in her sketchbbook along with many other things. Cat can essentially pass unseen when she wants (The description of this, of her sinking into her environment, is quite effective, I thought). Things go along pretty normally for the pair of them until a Cold Mage comes to their house, demanding the eldest Hassi-Barahal daughter to fulfill and old contract. Cat goes with him, and - things get complicated.

Cold Mages don't work well with modern tech (Some of it is the obvious factor of their cold - fires go out around them.) An airship is destroyed. Some of the mages try to kill her, while others seem bent on preserving her life. A protest movement for the common folk and their poor working conditions is gaining momentum. Cat wanders around in the spirit world and meets a most unexpected thing - her brother. There's a lawyer from a race of small sentient dinosaurs that survived to the modern age. There's a Legate of a Roman legion who may or may not be Cat and Bee's ally. There's a Napoleon equivalent who just escaped from his Elba equivalent.

It's busy.

The first part of the book takes time to build things up, to show the alternate world and how it's formed, to show peoples' manners and habits in this weird blend of cultures; there's not as much plot, and some solemn travelling, but I didn't find it slow, as some did, because there was a lot of world-building to absorb, and a lot of very tense and conflicted interpersonal stuff, the little plots before the bigger plot kicks in. In some ways, the worldbuilding might have been easier with a wholly new world, rather than having to knock apart our assumptions when we see a map of Europe.

The second half involves a lot of running and escaping and higher paced plot. Both involve deep personal betrayals and shifting views of the world. It pauses at the end at a moment that's both a reasonable breather and book break, and an obvious jumping off point for a greater plot.

My one brief doubt in any of it was learning that the trolls (the dinosaur lawyers) come from North America - there was a moment when it looked like this might turn into a Pat Wrede - where otherwise good worldbuilding is badly marred by casually erasing the existence of a whole continent's worth of real human beings. But it's made clear that there are *also* human nations still extant in North and South America, and in fact, they, (and the Caribbean, which is the major setting for book two) are in much better shape in this world, with rather less genocide.

I think it does most everything right.


Throne of the Crescent Moon - Saladin Ahmed

Intriguing first book in a series set in a Middle-Eastern flavoured other world; stands alone as well. Solidly recommended to anyone who likes adventure.

It was mentioned that it has a little bit of an RPG campaign feel to it, and I can see that, in rather the way my brother noted that the run through the Mines of Moria in the Fellowship of the Ring *movie* (not book) had that feeling.

Adoulla is the last ghul-hunter, at least in his country and city, a devotee of his God who uses his faith to rid the world of certain kinds of pestilential evil, and his assistant and trainee is a Dervish, a master swordsman with an even more strict religious code, somewhat scandalized by his master's rather mroe casual approach to Godly matters. Their city is ruled by a khalif who'd rather squeeze his people dry then leave them alone. The Falcon Prince is a dashing hero of the people who rescues children from execution and shows up the Khalif's injustice - but is himself a pragmatic and death-dealing mercenary and thief. Zamia is a woman who can take the shape of a Lioness, a power meant to be used to protect her desert tribe -- except that now her people have been slaughtered by ghuls and she is torn between the need to revenge them, and the need to someday rebuild and re-establish the tribe.

I quite liked having an older and experienced man (chubby and fond of food and books and looking at pretty women - but no less passionately devoted to serving his God and eradicating evil for it) as the main character, with the heroic teenager who takes himself oh so seriously as more of a sidekick.

Things happened fast, and with energy, but not without a core of very human emotion. There were some details that I found a bit more gruesome than absolutely necessary, but the characters are dealing with ghuls, monsters that devour human hearts, and the sorcerers who create them. I was pleasantly surprised at least twice that he didn't do what I thought he would with the villain and the plot twists.

And I kept craving cardamom tea.


Jack the Giant KillerSLAYER

Went to this as part of a friend's birthday celebration. It's one of those movies; everyone who went seemed to have fun watching it, but I don't think any one of us mistook it for a *good* movie. It's a B-movie, shameless about being a bit silly without falling into the excess camp that can ruin such a thing. The plot is mostly pretty predictable, at least in its broad strokes, but it had a few clever moments in the execution.

Good things:
- I liked that Jack was actually reasonably clever when not being head-in-the-clouds, and not just "we're told he's clever but..." I liked more that he really wasn't a fighter, and never pulled magic "Look, I can wield a sword I just picked up" skills - he defeats giants by thinking, and being fast on his feet. He runs away a lot.
- The horse (Not cow) Jack is trying to sell. That cart horse is probably the best horse in the kingdom.
- Isabel, the princess, sometimes did have agency. I liked those moments.
- Elmont, the Captain of the guard (or whatever his invented equivalent title was) was the more standard hero type, and a good minor character overall. AND he got to share a damsel in distress moment with the princess (actually, his part was even less dignified) without losing that sense of him being a heroic swordfighter and good manly dude type, which is awesome. Oh, wait. Ewan McGregor. That explains it.
- some of the things that have more consequences and fallout than they are often given. Ranging from the big ones, like the fact that killing a giant by dropping him off the edge of the floating land results in almost getting killed by your allies deciding to chop down the beanstalk. To a number of little ones.
- Mostly the acting was pretty good, actually.
- A number of fun lines.
- While we see exactly one farm, one city, and a bit of countryside between, there are details enough to give an idea this is more than a Disney set dressing kingdom, that people actually work and do things here in between balls (of royal dances there were thankfully none). When the king travels, he has a huge entourage. And people take advantage in the vicinity to create a makeshift market and entertainments. I get more impression of *viable* common life and daily life than I did from all of Lord of the Rings other than the Shire.
- The first glimpse of the monk; honestly, he looked like Rowan Atkinson. That would have been genius casting, even though it's a dead serious role and a really minor character.

Things that made me facepalm, but didn't ruin the movie for me:
- The "gravity doesn't work that way" beanstalk falling down and the unlikely "jumping in a crashing elevator" methods each of the characters used to survive that fall. Truly you can't imagine.
- if there's a floating land hidden in the clouds that most people don't believe in, this land has to be pretty much ALWAYS cloudy. (Then we learn it's called Albion and will eventually become England. Okay. Point covered. :P)
- Okay, if this is going to be England, how come it had a King named ERIC? I get the impression it was meant to be Eric the Red. which, no.
- several other times people should have died and didn't. Because PLOT.
- So we're not supposed to get the beans wet, ever. But Jack has them in a leather pouch while hiding in a pond, and/or inside a wooden locket while splashing about in a stream. How does this - ah, nevermind. It's not like the physics work.
- the smarmy arranged-marriage fiance. (Stanley Tucci) Well acted, and not entirely incompetent (He's beaten fair and square in a fight, after showing some decided skill at survival, not just at conniving). Just so much a stock character.
- The "But I don't love him!" argument against arranged marriage. At least this princess is given a demi-plausible reason for disagreeing with standard practice, but really.
- The "But I don't want to be a princess". Handled reasonably well; it's less that Isabel doesn't want the job - in fact, her mother did a good job of instilling in her what the responsibility and role would allow her to be - and to do for the people under her. She's mostly rebelling against her father's more stifling and different opinions what a princess should be. Still runs dangerously close to a bad trope.
- would have been nice to have more living women on screen. Elmont would have been even cooler as an Eleanore, though it would lose the whole "But... Ewan McGregor" aspect. I'm sure many people could name actresses they'd love to see battling competently with a sword in good armour. Sigh; it would have meant both women ended up damsels in distress in that one scene. Still, the only other options on screen long enough would have been the smarmy fiance or his sidekick, the giants, a character who gets their head bitten off or pushed off a cliff, or the King. Ah, the King could have been the Queen; flip the attitudes of the respective parents and kill off the father for once. I could also go with that.

Things that made me go argh in a bad way
- the damsel in distress moments.
- Everyone is exactly what they appear to be when first presented to the movie watcher, if not to the other characters. Especially the smarmy arranged-marriage fiance. I'd have liked it if this once, the smarmy fiance and his snickering sidekick turned out to be decent guys, not the orchestrator of evil plots. (Although that would probably have necessitated turning Elmont, as well as the monk, into the secret plotting villain. Which would have made me sad but been also kind of satisfying as an unexpected twist.)
- The giants' hair. No, really. Dark, coarse and in some cases explicitly crinkly/nappy. There was even one especially obvious afro. The giants were already dirty and misshapen human eating villains. Did we have to add something that has strong racial coding? Just no. (Doubt the racial coding? Then name me a story where the sign of evil is that disgusting thin pale hair that just drips straight down the back even when it's clean, unlike real, good, decent hair which of course is dark and crinkly and grows thickly upward).

The crowning moment:

There's already some spoilers above. But this is about the climax of the movie, so skip if you want no spoilers.



One of the key points is that the ancient King Eric's crown controls the giants. One of the leaders of the giants has it at the end, and of course, Jack kills him when he and the princess are alone, and gets the crown. So, with the Heir to the kingdom beside him, and the actual King only part of the castle away on the front lines ... Jack puts on the crown. And walks out in front of the king thus bedecked.

The princess being beside him and apparently approving seems to be a reasonable explanation why he's not shot for treason on the spot, but I would have thought that being told, "Good, the giants are gone, now HAND OVER THE ROYAL TREASURE OR DIE." would have been the obvious aftermath. People's hero isn't enough when you're holding the most priceless artifact around and the people who have a right to it are standing right there.

My theory, aired immediately after the movie, was that he went to give it to the princess, and *she* said "Dude. Put it on. The one way they'll let us get married is if you're too big a hero for them to ignore. I'll back you, trust me." A friend pointed out one more bit of support for this theory, which was that he'd obviously brushed his hair before he put it on. Jack wouldn't think of that. Isabel might.

Sounds like a minor plot hole, and there were others as egregious, but it caused the most discussion of the whole movie when it was over (Even more than the "gravity doesn't work like that" falling beanstalk).

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Some pretty squee:

I'm reading Kate Elliott's Cold Fire right now (I'm in the last or second last chapter). Cat, the woman with the sword, is the protagonist. The artist, her cousin Bee, is her closest friend, and has been having some odd dreams lately. Which she draws like she draws everything else in the vicinity. Bee's sketchbook itself is therefore highly significant to the plot, as some of what it contains isn't just the work of an artist doodling from life.

So now Kate Elliott and Julie Dillon are collaborating on a chapbook. First glimpse:

The Secret Journal of Beatrice Hassi-Barahal

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I has Shattered Pillars! (Hugs book)

Though hopefully matociquala will understand if I finish Throne of the Crescent Moon first.

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Actually, in this case, it might be argued that it's the bookstores behaving badly. I don't know enough about the Barnes & Noble/Simon & Schuster fight to know who to back. This article gives a summary of the fight, but too much is not in the public eye. My gut says B&N is being worse, and that imitating Amazon's "negotiating tactics" (Ie, bullying) is wrong, but I can't say for sure if S&S is being sensible or greedy. Still, it's pretty obvious who it's hurting, and it wouldn't be in S&S's interest to break the sales of their authors:

Caught in the Middle

The money quote:

For context, about half the B&Ns in the country, from what I could tell last year, stocked the paperback of Kat, Incorrigible and the hardcover of Renegade Magic. I think it might be normal to expect those numbers to go down a bit this time round, but I was hoping that at least 1/4 of the B&Ns I looked at would stock Renegade Magic.

Instead, I found...zero. Absolutely zero B&Ns, in any of the zipcode areas I looked up (and I looked up a LOT) were carrying the paperback of Renegade Magic - even stores that had always carried high stocks of the Kat, Incorrigible paperback and the Renegade Magic hardcover.

She's not going to be alone.

Martha Wells remarked, too, that she can't realistically see the publisher taking this into account nearly enough when renegotiating a deal. It's too easy to say, "You didn't sell last time."

This is Alma Alexander's impassioned rant on the same.

Several more authors in the comments here note their book orders dropped. And this link has a lot more. Including links to learn more about the books and to buy them if interested.

Living in another country, I purchase from them maybe once very two years (or less). I don't know what voice I have if I complain to them. But at least I can signal boost.

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And I should have told this story already.

A few days ago now, Elizabeth Bear's newest book, Shattered Pillars, came out. Bear is one of my top favourite authors, and this book, a sequel to Range of Ghosts, was one of the two books that most make me regret my resolution not to buy books for the rest of 2013.

I made a comment to this effect on Bear's release day announcement, including a wistful hope that someone would buy it for my birthday (Which isn't until June, I clarified that, too).

And someone there, an online acquaintance (I had her friended at one point, lost her in one of my most extreme and most temporary purges, and didn't add her back as far as I can tell because dumb) offered to send it to me. After some private correspondence -- I will be getting a book!

It is a truly fabulous random act of kindness. I said I'd try to pay her back *and* pay it forward at some point. She said just pay it forward. We'll see.

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Further to Publishers behaving badly: It seems Random House actually did respond from pressure from SFWA and MWA (mystery) - Possibly also RWA (Romance) though at last hearing they werre still discussing what to do.

VAST improvement. And yet.

Someone likened it to being given a raise that doesn't actually keep up with the rate of inflation. It's no longer vanity-level scuzzy, but it's still less than you'd expect from an imprint from a major publisher, and still has some iffy bits.

Here's the general announcement at Writer Beware: Random House Announces new terms at imprints

Here's Scalzi's commentary on what's offered. (To be fair, he also linked to this commentary by an agent about why the royalty-only part, at least, might not be all bad.)

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On a totally other subject, I found this an interesting read. The complete erasure of actual deaths is kind of chilling.

Green Screen: The Lack of Female Road Narratives and Why it Matters

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An open letter to Steinbach Christian High School principal Scott Wiebe, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, pastor Ray Duerksen of Southland Church, and Steinbach Mayer Chris Goertzen,

I have been reading of your objection to the Public Schools Amendment Act (Safe and Inclusive Schools) Bill 18. That you claim to do so in the name of religious freedom concerns me most.

Your desire to continue to judge, condemn, and isolate LGBTTQ teens little resembles the Christ of whom I have been taught, not only by my current church (Augustine United Church), but by the Roman Catholic Church with which I was raised (Many of whose priests have different views of Christian kindness than the upper echelons of the papacy suggest) and the Mennonite family into which I married (who are to me some of the greatest shining examples of true Christian compassion I have had the pleasure of encountering).

I do understand how wildly varied interpretations of Gospel have created schisms, such that the umbrella of Christianity can encompass different interpretations of the importance of different passages. I accept this difference. However, I cannot completely fail to note that the Christ of whom I was taught was the one who spent time with those who were scorned and isolated in his day, who supped with prostitutes and tax collectors, with women, with foreigners - with people both derided both for the nature they were born with and for those who made sinful choices.

I do not think that this Christ would approve of saying in essence that it is acceptable to bully homosexual or transgendered teenagers -- a group that is already at higher risk of depression and suicide specifically because of how they are often treated by their age peers.

I think He would be more likely to join a Gay-Straight Alliance himself, so that He could better speak to these vulnerable people Himself, and bring them into His light.

However, even those among you who can see this vision of Christ may not have the strength of His all-embracing love within you. I understand; we are all sinners, we all fall short of the ideal to be found in Him, and in all aspects of God. It is what makes us human, much less Christian. However, to bar others the chance to attempt to be Christ-like in our openness to the rejected goes beyond the reasonable failure to fully live His ideal and into the realm of actively rejecting Christ in our own hearts.

However, as regards the constitutional right to freedom of religion, I have to ask, does your faith truly require you to have permission to bully vulnerable teenagers? It is one thing to have an opinion on homosexuality based on the Biblical teachings, and nobody is trying to deny you that right. We cannot change the minds and hearts of people who do not wish their minds or hearts changed, and I for one have not the strength or Christ-like courage to try.

However, it is quite another to force those views on someone who does not share your religion, and another thing still to deny a vulnerable person a safe place to go, such as an alliance with fellow students, to escape the persecution of cruel peers - especially as to deny them this safe alliance also leaves such students vulnerable to those who condemn LGBTTQ with no religious motive.

Moreover, Bill 18 as I understand it does not require the existence of a gay-straight alliance, it merely prevents the school from forbidding such an activity. If the Steinbach Christian High School is succeeding in imparting those morals which its Principal, teachers, and presumably the parents of its students desire, then the students will have no reason to want to form such an alliance, and the inability to prevent it will be moot.

Here we come to the crux. The great concern against religious freedom seems to be that merely by the existence of measures to prevent their active persecution, this bill will somehow encourage the transformation of the children of Steinbach churches, leaders, parents, and teachers into homosexuals or transgendered people.

Do you truly think that your faith - and your heterosexuality and heteronormativity - are so fragile that the mere fact that someone cannot any longer be bullied for being gay will magically turn a straight child gay? The majority of people are, and remain, heterosexual. Those that are gay are not made so by a mere lack of bullying. The only difference is that fewer such teenagers will be driven to suicide by the treatment of their peers.

If in any way anyone suggests that the suicide of a child for being born gay is an acceptable price -- I make clear that I do not think anyone here believes as much, only that it is an obvious potential consequence of your concerns over religious freedom -- please direct them to look again at the gospels of Christ.

Still, I do understand this fear. It is in a parent's nature to worry that, in the sway of outside influences, all the efforts of parenting, of faith, of teaching, will come to naught and their child will turn out differently from what they hope. I sympathize, truly I do. However, I do not believe that the primal fears of failure at parenting should be enough to drive policy. I do not think our desire to protect our children from dire influences outside the family and the church should be the driving force behind wanting to strike down legislation against bullying.

I, too, have a son. I too worry that someday, in spite of my best efforts, he will turn out to believe things I do not believe. I fear that for all I wish to show him the ways of Christ, he will turn into someone who condemns those who are different from him. To that end, however, I can only be the best example I can be.

So I wish you and your families good health, good fortune, and prosperity. Yours in faith,


Lenora Rose P

CC: Winnipeg Free Press, Minister of Education Nancy Allan

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Let's start with the current Random house Brouhaha. Short version for those who don't know - Random House just opened three new imprints. Whose contracts are outright vanity contracts.

John Scalzi has a breakdown of the contracts.

And this is my publisher's response: This is not how it is supposed to work.

As Frank Wu noted (NB: his post is mostly about a side question), there are places which have used contracts where they take this many rights from a writer. It's called work-for-hire. But then they pay them a large sum, where this contract ... doesn't.

One Viable Paradise alumnus has already received an offer from Hydra, and near unanimous response was to turn it down*; if it's good enough to be accepted at Random House, it's good enough to be accepted elsewhere.

______________

Next up. Simon and Schuster. Who are apparently trying to get bloggers popular with self-published and aspiring authors to send people their way. For money. This one is a superb breakdown, but not the only one (Both links via James D. Macdonald at Making Light - aka Yog Sysop, Viable Paradise teacher, and Uncle Jim of Absolute Write's "Learn writing with...")

Yog's Law: Money flows towards the author.

_______________


And for leonacarver, this sort of crap is why I had to pause and double check that your acceptance was from a legit small press. (And why I was so happy.) This sort of thing happening in guise of a small press is ... not as uncommon as it should be.



* Aside from the obvious Captain America jokes...

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One of many reasons I didn't want to go with a Kindle.* Amazon has some truly weird ideas what is and isn't appropriate. (Although note at the end that they backed off on this one, watch for it regardless.

Former indie author penalized for self-publishing?

Via Making Light.

* And if anyone has a particular conversion program recommendation. I'd like my Kindle books to be readable on the Kobo. The most recommended thing seems to be Calibre, but it sounds like that program is designed to do a lot more than just file conversion. A bit to me like getting the full Photoshop suite so you can sometimes crop a picture. Well, if photoshop was free. and I have now used more words on the footnote than the post. again.

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My wrist spent yesterday hurting a little, and today hurting more, I can't decide whether in spite of or because I put it in a brace overnight. Which means I haven't decided what to do about it tonight.

Not, naturally, my right wrist with the known RSI -- nor is it RSI pain. Mom poked over my hand, and picked out the most likely candidate, which is technically where thumb joins wrist, and considered a part of the hand. It's also a common starting place for arthritis and other forms of inflammation. And the flaring I was describing and the ways it does and doesn't hurt seemed to fit that. (As opposed to a break or a sprain. As long as this is a temporary inflammation, I'll take it.)

Took an NSAID and it seems to have helped.

Also I was wearing my sewing glove things (basically finger-tip-less things that encourage circulation and keep my hands from freezing while doing computer stuff, which is apparently like enough to sewing in this respect. I've long loved those glove-things even when I wasn't hurting.)

It's always a surprise with things like this, though, which automatic motions cause trouble. Lift a laundry basket? No problem. Pick up a squirmy toddler? With caution, it's not a problem. Try to rest my hand on my hip or a table? OUCH.

well, I'll be trying to get some x-rays of my hip and lower back in a couple of days (Damage left from pregnancy or labour, not sure which. Plus the hip was always a bit odd. An ongoing issue, not very interesting.) If the wrist is still hurting I may look for a walk-in clinic and see if I can get seen in a reasonable length of time there. (There's at least one within a couple of blocks. Worst case, I can go there, get a time in a couple of hours from my arrival, go for the x-ray and come back...)

_________________

It's amazing how agent queries can slip away from one. Well, there's a few more out, anyhow.

I find them a lot more stressful than I should for letters that are 75%-90% copy-pasted (How much I personalize varies, but the general story blurb doesn't change even when I tailor everything else about it as much as possible.) Each one makes me a little more nervous.

Then I don't send them out for a bit, and instead I stress that I'm never going to get published if I don't *try*.

_________________

So my father in law left last night. In spite of the snow here and in his stopover in Calgary, he got home well and with his luggage. We had some nice talks on the day of his departure.

I *was* amused to hear him say that he doesn't do small talk, because this is the man who will converse with anyone about nearly anything, who seems to live his life looking for chances to talk to people. But it's equally true he doesn't talk sports, or the weather, or bland "how are you" platitudes. (If he asks how someone is, he wants a genuine answer, and he looks for better, more personal, versions of the question.)

One of the things he does, it occurs to me, along with genuinely seeing how people he knows are getting one, trying to encourage people in their pursuits directly, and point out the things they do well (He loves to find the good things in people and say them out loud), is try to find places one person either needs help, or can help others. And he'll remember. And he'll tell them about one another. He talks to forge connections as well as to maintain the ones he has.

When Colin was drawing up the renovation plans for the house, he had an engineer friend of his stop in and look them over to tell him what he needed to change or include for the building permit office, and wracked his brain, hard, to remember and track down the person he'd met who did well-recommended windows. Now, in that case, that was his own son, any caring father might do that. But he does it for people in his church. For friends of friends. For people he knows in Lesotho (his meeting in the morning of his departure date, in that instance), or in China, or Russia. He made sure to call on a person he last knew almost 20 years before while we were in Spain; someone whose son might well be a perfect candidate for his connection-making skills.

Once I see it in that light, it's much more interesting watching him talk on and on with people. There are still times it can be frustrating, that he always wants to talk. (Like when one is reading. Or there are stories from Colin's childhood, or of his wife's frustration during cross-country drives).
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Somewhere in this week I have to get at least some of our dishes etc. put away in actual sensibly chosen cupboards and drawers. Right now they're mostly stored where they were out of the way, or put back into the cupboards they were in even when those cupboards moved to locations that are no longer logical.

Some of the things that got boxed away might stay there a while, even though I think technically we have slightly *more* space than we did. Because we never had quite enough. But my tea is going to find a cupboard or a shelf, dammit. (I left my most common choices in the pantry, and *still* had to fetch one container from the box).
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Someone remarked that there's a new Elfquest comic out, being drawn once weekly or so, and featured on BoingBoing in the process.l This led me to the discovery that they have pretty much their whole archive online. Which, since the last issues I have are from kings of the Broken Wheel, means I ahve been doing a LOT of catch up reading. Between all the the things I read...

Everything is crossposted to DW and LJ until further notice. Post comments here or there. (Comments at DW: )

We have more kitchen. Otherwise, though, not much new. So here, have some songs. A range of what I've been listening to lately.

From the sweet and pure:


( plus the ridiculous, the sublime, and a couple moreCollapse )

Everything is crossposted to DW and LJ until further notice. Post comments here or there. (Comments at DW: )

The Google Glass feature no one is talking about

Everything is crossposted to DW and LJ until further notice. Post comments here or there. (Comments at DW: )