James Schellenberg, new columnist at Strange Horizons, has got a piece up in the latest issue where he's quizzed a handful of writers about their music-listening habits while writing.
Oddly enough, James asked for my own take on the subject, and it's sorta cool to see me listed up there with Cory Doctorow, James Patrick Kelly, Louise Marley, Nalo Hopkinson, Maureen McHugh and Suzy McKee Charnas.
Most excellent. Go check it out.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Music & Writing
Monday, April 18, 2005
Good Things
Deana Carter's CD The Story of My Life. That whole thing United Airlines has, where they play the same four songs from the same six CDs over and over in constant rotation throughout their flights for months on end? Works really well to lure business travelers into buying said CDs...
Michael Faber's incredibly cool and creepy Under the Skin, a book about a female human-looking creature who goes out and picks up male hitchhikers and... well, you'll just have to read it and find out. Deeply creepy, very good. Definately my kind of book.
Chicago's Riveria Theatre, right around the corner from my house. Went to a Westerberg concert there on Friday with B, and had a good time. The acoustics aren't great, but it's a neat venue. Next time, I'm going to buy lots of beer, too. There's just something about a smoke-filled rock concert that makes one want to consume large quantities of alcohol...
Good Morning, Chiklits
Ah, yes, enjoyed a nice, relaxing weekend, arrived comfortably late to work in order to catch up on some sleeping, and am enjoying an absolutely great warm sunny Spring day. The leaves are on the trees, the flowers are blooming, my basil is spouting, and I didn't over-creamer my coffee this morning.
Excellent.
Friday, April 15, 2005
BLAH BLAH BLAH
I'm so leaving early today. As you all can see, the workplace has fried my brain, and there will be nothing but mostly fluff, links, and very little commentary beyond "FUCKTARDS!!" for the rest of the day...
Oh, For Fuck's Sake
Here we go again.
Let's get over this sex thing, OK? We'll lead, happier, healthier lives that way.
Sheesh.
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Random Pirate Blogging
Because you can only do about 30 hours worth of uploading onto a client's server before you go batshit crazy.
Pirate Relationships!
Pirate Poem!
Moon Pirate!
Pirates for Dummies!
Pirate legos were the best!
It is Another Beautiful Day, My Chiklits
Picked up some writing music yesterday, as work on my stand-alone novel (was "Jihad," now is the more all-inclusive "God's War") petered out earlier this year and needs to get back on track so I can have a finished book by year's end.
Going through the library catalogue to get more research books. There's jack shit at the public library, but Jenn's got access to the Northwestern U library, which is a great resource.
Also typing up a story I've started working on longhand, which I'd like to get in the mail at the end of the month. I've gotta get some new stuff out. I feel like I'm drowning, and I know a lot of my low-feeling the last few months has to do with the fact that not much fiction's getting written while my job's been throwing me around the country and the rejection slips have been piling up. Creating new worlds, running through stories, I just feel a hell of a lot better when I'm doing it. I've gotten sidetracked, discouraged, and it's time to get better.
I think getting the second agent reject for the fantasy novel (only two actually asked for the 50 pages - the rest were flat rejects) really bit me. Sometimes, you just want to stay low for awhile, clear out your system, before you start again. I've been losing a lot of my self confidence.
And still, I write. And submit.
Cause if I'm gonna do it anyway, I want to get paid for it.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
These Days, Even the Cookie Monster Has an Eating Disorder, Redux
If you're not familiar with Cookie Monster, he's a muppet with an unhealthy obsession with cookies. He completely lacks self control when it comes to his favorite food and often gets himself into trouble because he'll do just about anything for a cookie.
For the past three decades the Cookie Monster has been the monstrous embodiment of gluttony. He has, in other words, always taught children about healthy eating habits.
And now we're dumbing down our television programming even further. Assuming kids won't "get it."
Gosh, it's great to be a stupid Amurikan.
The Real Reason They Don't Like Women Competing Against Men: Cause the Women can Win
...at 10 years old, Makeba Elliott, an honor student at Blackhawk Elementary in Park Forest, has won two consecutive boys' state wrestling championships. Last month, the Park Forest fifth grader -- whose quickest takedown was in 18 seconds -- ended a 54-5 season by taking top honors in the boys' 2005 Midget State Championship. She also won the boys' midget championship in 2004.
But my favorite part is:
Makeba has also been a trailblazer for female athletes at her school. When Blackhawk Elementary was forming a basketball team last year, school officials told Makeba she couldn't join because basketball was for boys and cheerleading was for girls, her father said. Makeba responded by writing a letter to the principal that persuaded him to allow girls on the team, and Makeba now plays point guard.
A Proper Brutal Woman's Bag
You know, I don't carry a purse, but I sure could see myself toting one of these to my next shindig.
BlogHer Conference
via boingboing
BlogHer: Woman-centered blogger con, Sta Clara, Jul 30
The BlogHer conference is a woman-centric conference on blogging to be held on July 30 in Santa Clara, CA:
BlogHer Conference '05 will provide an open, inclusive forum to:
1. Discuss the role of women within the larger blog community
2. Examine the developing (and debatable) code of blogging ethics
3. Discover how blogging is shrinking the world and amplifying the voices of women worldwide
All Your Base Are Belong To Us!
“At Last, You Could Become America's Next Best Selling Author and Reality Show TV Celebrity!”
You know, when we were at Clarion, the idea of a "Clarion Reality TV" series came up - for about three seconds.
SF writers - in fact, writers in general - are not the world's most beautiful people. We're just not. You'd have to fall in love with us the way you fall in love with the characters on Carnivale. We're not plastic people. Our sex is very messy; especially the sort that goes on at Clarions.
And, you know, writers write. We spend most of our time actually hunched in front of keyboards, screaming, "Fucktard!" or laughing maniacally every few hours.
That's about it. Nick's rant about the glam writer's lifestyle, here.
What's that I've Been Saying, Again?
The study found that having obese parents, suffering from depression, and engaging in radical dieting like forced vomiting, were all risk factors for future obesity in adulthood.
"Engaging in these radical behaviors isn't going to stop you from being obese," said psychologist Eric Stice, Ph.D., the lead author of the study. "In fact they're likely to do the opposite."
I'm curious, however, why they chose to focus only on girls.
I guess because being a fat woman is just so much grosser and more dangerous. Of course, women are more likely to engage in vomiting and anorexic behavior, leading to greater percentage of obesity? Or not? Without a comparison among teenage boys, this is sort of floating around in nowhere land.
Malicious Public Blasphemy, Coming Soon
A Greek court will rule on whether to allow sales of a cartoon book from Austria depicting Jesus Christ as a drinking buddy of Jimi Hendrix and a marijuana-smoking, naked surfer.
They charged `em with: "Malicious public blasphemy."
Dude, I so want to charged with malicious public blasphemy. Imagine what it would do to my hit count...
Good Morning, Chiklits
Another day, another dollar, again with the too much creamer in my goddamn coffee. It's like drinking milk.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
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