One for the Road

kameronhurley.com

Yes, I finally bought it (yes, current content is a placeholder only).

The totally awesome Tyim Courts is currently hip deep in site design. Things will be moving over there slowly but surely (in about two weeks!).

You will all be jealous when you see it!!

Girls for Obama

The best part, I think, is just seeing pictures of girls engaged in... well, being full, active, passionate people.

It makes me happy.

Just because you can vote and wear pants...

The day a woman candidate runs and nobody talks about what she's probably like in bed will be awesome. Can you think of any other candidate who was sexualized (or desexualized) the same way our two big female candidates have been?

The goal is to mock Palin’s intelligence not by engaging with her foolish beliefs and ignorant rhetoric, but by pointing and saying “look, boobs!” or “I’d sure like to hit that!” And making her non-threatening isn’t only dangerous politically when Palin is in fact in a position to potentially do a lot of harm; attempting to make her non-threatening in this way is dangerous to all women who hold power, who want to be taken seriously, and who dream of being able to be proud of their sexuality and brains all at the same time. An acknowledgment of female sexuality shouldn’t be seen as mocking — these portrayals of Palin only reinforce the idea that it is.

And:

We still live in a world where sexuality itself is seen as degrading to women.

As somebody who feels like I can't talk about sex and my enjoyment of it for just that reason - because doing so will somehow devalue me as a human being - I really fucking resent this crap. Is it just that it's even more alarming and teeth-gnashing when they do it to powerful women?

It reminds you that you just can't escape it. You have to face it. And kick it's ass. It's not going away just because we can vote and wear pants.

"You need to be brilliant."

"The truth is that most of what comes in is perfectly competent. Stories with an interesting protagonist with a clear motivation, on a journey with a definite beginning, middle and end. The problem isn't that it's full of problems. The problem is that it's competent, okay, decent, moderately well-executed, perfectly servicable... You get the idea.

To stand out from this sea of submissions, you need to sparkle. You need to be un-put-downable. As jaded as editors are, you need the manuscript that makes you want to grab the phone immediately to call your spouse, boy/girlfriend, best friend because you can't wait to talk about it, the manuscript that has you leaping out of your chair because you've got to do something to disperse the energy that's rushing off the pages and into your heart. You need to be brilliant."

Writerly Bookery

I expected to be asked for my website address and author photo from my publisher at some point... I did not expect that that would be this week.

Crap. It's almost November already, isn't it?

Well, I'll just send them the new URL when I have it. But the author photo really should be done this week. I have no excuses.

It's funny that the request comes on the tail end of my day job's annual franchise convention, where our vendors and franchisees (who've worked with our much larger competitors), asked my boss what marketing agency he'd used to produce all the videos, welcome books, binders, handouts, signage, etc. for the convention. When they found out our little 3-person on staff team put together the whole thing, they were just about floored.

I play a writer in real life, now, too.

And that fiction writing life?

That's going to get really real really quickly here too.

Life is kind of surreal. At some point, after years of slogging away, it feels like you've gotten on a train, and everything is just going really fast.

Workadoo

We should also hopefully have some workadoo projects up on YouTube shortly, and you'll be able to see what all the bloggerly-silence has been about... well, that and rampant socializing.

I discovered Cincinnati this weekend, and learned that it's not ALL of Ohio that sucks... just Dayton. Dayton is the jewel of suckage.

But Columbus and Cincinnati... not so bad!

Because it just isn't Halloween....

... without Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (??) and Some Chick in a Hat.

I do think it's sad that the one year I can't afford a costume is the year I get invited to a Halloween party one weekend *and* a work party this Friday.

Oh well. It's a Very Nice Hat (a few more pics here).

Pumpkin Pancake Recipe

You'll thank me later...

And yes, these are diabetic friendly.

1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup almond meal
3-4 heaping tbs Splenda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp pumpkin spice
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup canned pumpkin (mmmmm PUMPKIN!!!)
1 egg
1 tbs vegetable oil
1 tsp white vinegar

You will need a big bowl and a medium bowl.

In the medium bowl, combine the pumpkin, egg, oil, and vinegar. Stir until they are combined nicely.

In the big bowl, mix up everything else. Then add the pumpkin mixture from the medium bowl into the big bowl. Stir it all up together in the big bowl until it is juicy and awesome. If the batter still seems too thick, add a little more milk. I don't know why you have to combine the ingredients separately and then put them together, but that's what the googles say to do, and mmmm does it turn out fine!

Cook them up and enjoy the pumpkin-y goodness!!!

I Need to Go Back to School

All of my deferred loans are coming due. They're doable and all - it just means paying less toward the CC debt, and that just bugs me.

Sitting down and hammering on my budget again. The last two months have not been kind to me.

Pumpkin Fest `08

Guess which one's mine?


Shenanigans in full swing at Hacienda Hurley.


Stephanie, Queen pumpkin.


This is serious business, yo.

View the Whole Event Here!

They Came For...

"They came for the Communists, and I

didn't object - For I wasn't

a Communist;

They came for the Socialists, and I

didn't object - For I wasn't a Socialist;

They came for the labor leaders, and I

didn't object - For I wasn't a labor leader;

They came for the Jews, and I didn't

object - For I wasn't a Jew;

Then they came for me -

And there was no one left to object."

Martin Niemoller, German Protestant Pastor,

1892-1984

Does it Bug Anyone Else...

... that all the women they've cast in GI Joe look exactly the same?

And where the hell is Lady Jane, srsly? Jinx? They kept Scarlett and Baronness, both of whom are used as "love interests" for either side (after all, somebody has to be "the girl!"), and "Cover Girl" a "Super model turned Joe"???? She was a limited release in the 80s because no one liked her. Note that she's only allowed to run a tank cause she's "hot," and therefore "not REALLY scary."

I fucking hate Hollywood.

Why Hand-holding, Flower-loving Matriarchies Never Rang True to Me

Oh look, matriarchies can be violent (just like any other human social setup)!

I admit, I write a lot of violent matriarchies. Mainly because I believe that any social setup that represses another group within it is going to be violent. The most egalitarian fantasy group I have are a bunch of polyamorous, socialist, gender-fucking hippies called Drakes (in, fittingly, The Dragon's War), and they've managed to keep their society that way mainly based on environmental isolation.

But, my matriarchies?

Violent as all get-out.

Money

Boy does it suck.

Workadooooo

I am so tired.

Autumn

Oh She of the Pink Hair

I called my hair salon today to make my new cut and color appointment.

They have, apparently, fired my old stylist, oh she of the "your pink hair will totally wash out in a couple of days" fame.

I suppose that at some point, all that Rockstar pink hair will catch up with you...

But, you know, despite the pink hair, I did ask for her again. I guess that when folks are paying $140 for a cut and color (including tip), they are less amused by folks who remind me of my sister and give them 2 weeks worth of pink hair.

Some workplaces are far less forgiving than mine.

In any case, new stylist this time around. Should be entertaining to see how it comes out. Hopefully entertaining in a not sucky way, since I have, in fact, been very pleased with all of my ridiculous cut and color appointments at this place, despite the pink.

After spending three weeks and $120 trying to fix a botched haircut at the local Great Clips, paying an assload to get it right the first time suddenly seemed like a great investment.

One For the Road

Training Daze

Now that the pool at the gym is back in order, I meant to get back to the gym tonight on the regular triathlon schedule (as opposed to last week's jogging day, 2 weight training days, and 2 biking days), but I haven't been feeling all that great. A combination of some very late (though awfully enjoyable) nights, wonky sugar, and work stress have really got me down. Healthwise, I haven't been so hot, either, which is related to the wonky sugar, which is related to the work stress. I can't wait until next Thursday when the work stress plummets.

The lousy thing about being me these days is that I'm a lot less flexible than I used to be. Schedules work great, but get me out of the schedule, and things fall down pretty quickly. Or, rather, I exhaust myself pretty quickly.

Sometimes I need to remember that, yeah... I'm just not as super-wow as I used to be, you know... stay up all night drinking vodka and cranberry juice in a cabin in the woods, then hop up the next day, drink more beer, and cram for a history final while navigating tricky group dynamics. Yeah, no more of that. Not that I miss any of that, really...

I just hate things I see as weakness, sometimes, especially when it's coming from me.

Where are my superpowers??

I think tonight is home, reading, bed. No shenanigans.

Being a Female Bodyguard

"What I hate is when you get a member of the royal family. It's the same thing every year: you have to be vetted by a guy from the Saudi embassy saying, "Oh, my God, you are a woman!" At which point you have to throw one of his blokes on the floor and stamp on his windpipe to prove you can do the job."

And if you want to know what Black Desert is about, it's basically this:

"I'm nearly 50 and I am shocked that I'm still alive. I was shocked at 30 and I was shocked at 40. I keep saying it's time to wind down, but I miss doing my job too much. I need the adrenalin."

(Thanks, David!)

V for Vendetta

I love this movie more every time I watch it.

Which might say something terrifying about the state of the world. Or a lot about me. Or both.

I Should Know Better

Workadoo

South Park: All Free, All the Time

All episodes of South Park are now available to view, for free, online.

Wow.

A Woman's Place

And etc.

Back to the Trenches

Just about done with the first pass on Black Desert line edits. Not actually typing them in, mind, just bleeding over the manuscript, which is a mess (yes, that sounds messy, doesn't it?). There's this very obvious chunk of the book where I'm just dithering away until I can come up with the ending (ie get Nyx back in the picture), and I cut out a whole chapter last night to help get over that long, boring pre-ending. I was feeling pretty pessimistic about the whole bloody thing until I pushed past that lull. Then Nyx shows back up, and the book starts again. I'm really going to need to work on that. The secondary characters should be strong enough to carry the book for four chapters, and right now, they aren't. Things which must be fixt....

In other news, I'm thinking about writing some short fiction again. I think some of my struggle is just that I've been spending so long working in one world, in one medium. I love writing novels, and I love this world, but I've been working on bel dame novels, in one way or another, since 2003.

How time flies.

Why is it...

... that writing actually gets *harder* the happier I become?

I think it's just a matter of getting back into constant practice. Giving myself a long break as a reward may not be the best way to manage my new writing all day/writing books all night lifestyle.

Because socializing and gym time have to come in there sometime. Also, cookery, modding, and WoWing... and movies. And French. And... reading. And...

I need a more structured activity schedule.

Yes, I Am Busy...

... but in a good way!

Celebrating Banned Books

I think this is an uber-kewl and terribly creative idea.



(thanks, Tyim!)

"Your Dirty Sex Makes God Send Hurricanes!"

Oh man... can't. stop. laughing...

Shit that Keeps Me in Dayton

Every once in a while, I'll get tired and frustrated with the idea of living in Dayton, and start searching through job ads.

I do this because it reminds me of the hard truth:

If you add in health benefits, I make as much (and, in some places, more - again, if you count the health insurance, which easily covers 5k a year in expenses for me for $10 a month) in this little town doing what I do than I'd make in a big city doing the same thing.

It appears that the swing over will happen once I have 2-5 years of experience instead of 1-2. There's a pretty significant wage jump between the 1-2 years experience copywriting jobs and the 2-5 years of experience copywriting jobs. Once I have the two years of experience, maybe other options will look more appealing?

But so long as this place pays me what they do and offers the health insurance program that they do, I just can't justify *not* living in this blasted heath of a red town.

Man, I love my job. I just wish it was in, like, Columbus or something. You see? At this point, I could totally be OK with the idea of living in Columbus!

And More It's a Small World Afterall

So, the other night, my date brought over a movie called The Gamers. It's a little D&D cult classic, basically a bunch of college guys with a couple of cameras, who document their D&D game in the basement of their school (which you can watch - in all its cheesy, low budget glory - on YouTube)

So I'm sitting there watching the opening where the guys are heading down the hall to start the game, and I'm thinking, man, that dude just to the right of camera looks really familiar.

And then they all sit down around the gaming table again, and yeah, seriously, that DM looks really familiar. I started paying attention to the opening credits, and, lo and behold, there it was:

"Matt Cameron" was playing the DM.

I actually had to pause the movie and burst into uncontrollable laughter.

Matt Cameron and I went to elementary school together. We were best friends for a couple of years from third-firth grade. He introduced me to all of the SF books in the library. When I was 16, I saw him again when he came to a production of Macbeth at my highschool where I played Banquo. The last time I saw him, I was dropping him off at his house after taking him out to dinner with the theater crew.

Appparently, Matt got into theater hijinks of his own in college... I totally should have known. He always did have a love for text-based computer games. It was only a matter of time before he found D&D.

According to Wikipedia, he's now a lawyer in Boston, which is much closer to what I figured he'd be doing with his life. Matt was one of those prodigies who skips grades and attends Gifted classes. I loved hanging out with him, and I was sad when we started to grow apart in the fifth grade. He was a really neat friend. And, honestly, I missed all of the book recommendations.

So then today, I'm randomly clicking Stumbleupon links and I get this page on the Scientific American website, and just before I go to click through again I'm thinking, "Man, that guy looks really familiar."

Pause.

"No, really, that guy looks really familiar." I checked the name, and there it was: Chen-Bo. Chen-Bo was one of Jenn's classmates at Northwestern. He came over a couple of times, as I recall, and was in attendance at several social gatherings Jenn let me tag along on. He was pretty awesome.

It's kind of weird to realize that all of the adults out in the world now are, you know, your contemporaries? Because that means that, uh, you must be an adult now, too, with your book deal and corp writing job?

Um?

"Maybe in Ohio, But Not in America!"

Man, I'm not looking forward to voting in Ohio.

Bookery: It's a Small World

Was browsing the bookstore with my date last night and saw a copy of David Schwartz's Superpowers. I had been picking up and talking about books and authors for sometime as we browsed the shelves, but when I picked this one up, the date said, "I think I've heard of this."

He works at a comic book store, so this didn't surprise me.

I babbled about Dave Schwartz for a bit and my date said, "You know what, I think I heard him on NPR. He seemed like a really nice guy."

Man, bookery gets around. "Actually, yeah, you probably did," I said. "He had a spot on there, I remember. He's a total sweetheart of a guy. It's about kids in Madison with superpowers. I think you'll get a kick out of it."

My date bought the book. Note that it generally takes 3-4 brain taps about a book before you buy it, which was why it was interesting to watch the power of media and personal recommendations play out right there. He'd heard of the book on NPR and also listed somewhere online, and then I pimped it. Third time's the charm.

This made me terribly happy, because there are far too many people I know who write books that aren't up my alley, and then I never read them. And then I feel like a Bad Writer.

But hey, I've learned that just because it may not be my kind of book doesn't mean I can't pimp it. And, knowing my date, I think he'll really dig this book, the little comic-book nerd, Terry Pratchett-reading, Dresdan loving little goof that he is.

Sweet beans.

Quote of the Day

"We turned at a dozen paces, for love is a duel, and looked up at each other for the last time."

—Jack Kerouac

Back at the Gym

Yup, that would be the gym.

I'm glad I waited until I could breath again to go, cause jogging last night wasn't the most pleasant thing in the world anyway. Good news is, I made my best time yet.

Now it's off to do the workday training routine at the Y.