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January 11th, 2011
 | 01:11 pm - Happy Tiara Day!
Happy Birthday, Alethea!
And here's another one, in the snow. Snow! In Atlanta! Something is Very Wrong! (I hear they are calling it Hoth-lanta now. ^__^)
Current Location: Hoth-lanta!
Current Mood:  giggly
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November 30th, 2010
 | 03:38 pm - Impending Radio Silence
I'm an inconsistent, infrequent blogger, but I do usually keep up with reading my Livejournal friends page, my twitter stream, my facebook news page, and so forth.
However... the deadline for the novel I'm currently writing is in one week, and I'm not quite where I 'd like to be on it.
So, for the next week, I will not be reading your posts, tweets, or status updates. If you need to communicate with me, you need to email me directly (or call me, if you have my number). If you don't have my email address, go look at the contact page on my website, or on facebook. My email address is not hard to find. If you want to call, but don't have my number, email me and we'll see about that.
Thanks!
Current Mood: busy
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| 12:18 pm - Leftover Holiday Ham Chowder Recipe
I started writing this as a reply to someone else's post, but it's long and complicated, and also... I thought I'd like to have a copy of the recipe handy here, and I thought some of you may be interested in trying it out, too.
( recipe under the cut )
Current Mood: hungry
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November 14th, 2010
| 10:54 pm - FYI: On the question of Courier or TNR, I am entirely indifferent...
A quick update:
I've been quiet about this, waiting to make sure it was going to work out, but it's official now: I'm reading slush for Clarkesworld Magazine. It's working out quite nicely.
I mention this mostly because, for some of you, it might be a little weird if you discovered this on your own or heard it from someone other than me.
That said, if you've been recently rejected or are rejected in the future, be sure to note there are quite a number of other slush readers. The chance that I was the one to read your story is actually surprisingly small.
I'm reading a lot of really wonderful stuff though, and I hope or expect to see many of the stories again when they are published, even though they may not have made the final cut at Clarkesworld.
That's all for now. I'm also writing a nanowrimo novel, so I'm pinched for time and have to go and work on that now. (Anybody else doing nanowrimo? Did I ask that here already?)
Current Mood: sleepy
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October 20th, 2010
| 06:52 pm - Have you been trying to IM me?
Over the last four days, I've received several email notifications from google that make it seem as if someone has been trying to chat with me on google talk, but the system failed to connect. (For several of those occurrences, it was probably because I had it shut down.) Unfortunately, I can't tell who it is that's been trying to contact me.
If you've attempted to IM with me in the last few days and failed, received an error, or no response, could you please drop me an email? (Or post here to let me know, if you don't have my email address and need it.)
In other news, the Dalai Lama talk yesterday was fun, but I haven't the time to post about it today, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow.
Current Mood: working
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October 18th, 2010
 | 05:27 pm - Exciting stuff!
Tomorrow I'm going to see the Dalai Lama talk about creativity at Emory, with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.7) sandyparsons , bethgreg , and Julie, who may or may not be on livejournal, but if she is, I'm unaware of it.
Exciting stuff! Also speaking will be Alice Walker (The Color Purple) and an actor, whose name I've forgotten already. That's no reflection on his fame, but only that I 'm not really a movie buff.
Other neat stuff happening in my life: Lots and lots, which is partly why I've been continuing to neglect the livejournal. Too much to talk about. Some of it I can't talk about yet (possibly ever, but that would make me sad). Suffice it to say that I am quite pleased with the state of most things Terra. I could be writing more, but that's always the case.
Tomorrow, I'll return here and report in about the Dalai Lama's talk.
In the meantime, what are you folks up to?
Current Mood: excited
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October 8th, 2010
 | 04:32 pm - Opinions? Guesses?
Does Charbuque rhyme with barbecue or with puke? Anyone know?
ETA: Thanks go to readingthedark, who provides us with the answer: Neither. It rhymes with kook.
Current Mood: curious
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September 25th, 2010
 | 10:34 am - Competent, but not engaging.
jmmcdermott offers an excellent piece of writing advice: Be interesting.
It doesn't matter that your story's well-written if it's boring.
ETA: For that matter, one might argue that if it's boring, it's not well-written, even if the prose is free of errors.
Current Mood: happy
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September 8th, 2010
 | 10:59 am - The Monster's Million Faces
I just finished reading "The Monster's Million Faces" by Rachel Swirsky.
I am posting this now to simultaneously encourage you to go read it... or... possibly stay very far away from it, depending. (Apologies to Ms. Swirsky.)
"The Monster's Million Faces" is good. Very, very good, and I'm glad I read it. But I almost wish it had come with some sort of warning label at the top. I'm not sure I was prepared to go where the story went. Not right now, today, anyway. But it's a beautiful late summer morning here in Georgia, and the sun is bright. I have a big To Do list today. I hope it will be enough to get my head back on straight.
I'm not going to spoil the story (I hope), but I just want to say:
If you were ever a victim of child abuse (in any form, I think), you may want to be cautious about when and where you read "The Monster's Million Faces."
If you were never a victim (or even if you were, but think you can handle going there) I recommend the story. I think it's one of the most powerful stories I've read all year. Rachel Swirsky's stories are always good--she's one of my very favorite short fiction writers--but this one... I'm sure I'll never forget this story.
I don't actually want to discuss the story or my reaction to it in any real detail, at least not now, so I'm locking comments.
To Rachel Swirsky, if you happen upon this post: Thank you for this story. I'm not sure I was ready for it this morning. But thank you anyway.
Current Mood: indescribable
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August 27th, 2010
 | 07:06 am - I'm going back to bed now.
Last night I had troubling dreams. Another dream of houses, but this time--possibly for the first time--the houses were not elevated by stilts or any other means. This time: two distinctly separate houses in a nearby development. Around here there are half-finished neighborhoods everywhere. Developers caught out by the housing market crash appear to have abandoned them, and they are a pitiful sight. Fully-finished, inhabited homes sit side-by-side with abandoned houses that never made it past the framing stage. Across the street from them are empty lots, which are either choked with weeds or, depending on the time of year, filled with sucking mud, which in Georgia is extra awful because our mud is red and stains everything.
In any case, two houses in a half-finished housing development--one finished, one only framed. We** worked together to acquire them both. The plan was for everyone** to live together in the finished house while we finished the other one, then for us to spread out between the two, but somehow while I was off trying to sort legal paperwork and deeds, or buy building supplies, or something, my husband and son and all our belongings were installed in the unfinished house, even though it provided pretty much no protection from the weather.
Of course it was raining, and everywhere was that sucking Georgia mud. The finished house was just uphill from the unfinished house, and the rainwater brought extra mud downhill. I tried to make it work. I put tarps and things up to try to keep off the worst of the rain and mud, but my loved ones kept begging my help on tasks in the finished house--help us rearrange the furniture, help us paint the upstairs hall. Can you hook up the new dishwasher? Etc... Somehow I could not ever seem to say no. And while we were supposed to all work together on both houses, no one from the finished house could ever spare the time to help me get a roof on the unfinished house or siding up, or anything. They were too busy rearranging the furniture or painting the upstairs hall of the finished house.
It was as frustrating and upsetting as you would imagine such a situation would be, and I might have been less troubled by it once I woke, but I didn't need any dream analysis to know what this one was about. It's about as blatant a metaphor as any subconscious mind could possibly provide. I thought dreams were supposed to bring insight and new information, not pound you with depressing imagery about situations you're already aware of and trying to deal with. Stupid dreams.
** In these sorts of dreams "we"/"everyone" is always a shifting cast of characters made up of people I care about.
Current Mood: exhausted
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