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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
| Saturday, July 18th, 2009 | ||
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desperance |
5:56p | Sale! Pete Crowther has been a friend of mine for, ooh, many years now. I was always a fan of his short stories; I am deeply enamoured of his wife (it's okay, they both know this; I have Licence to Flirt). When he set up PS publishing, with the express intention of providing a market for the SF/F/H novella, I thought that was a fine thing. I thought I'd write him some novellae. So I did, twice, and he turned them both down. It's a confusing thing, this friendship... Anyway. Nothing daunted, I wrote a third, Rotten Row, my first lengthy foray into straight SF. It's been around a while now, being reworked a couple of times; last week, finally, JJ sent it to Pete for an opinion, as PS is still the publisher of first recourse. With the enthusiastic support of Nick Gevers as editor, he's bought it. Yay! My first legitimate SF volume!! You'll have to wait a while, mind - PS is notoriously backed-up with material, and it probably won't be out till 2011. Possess your souls in patience... PS - it's all ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} mevennen's fault. I was chasing her across London when I did two things - walked the length of Rotten Row and saw my first cycle-rickshaw - that triggered the whole thing in my head... |
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dancinghorse |
9:34a | Photoblogging: Cat Expressions tcastleb wielded her mighty camera this week, and got some wonderful lolcat candidates.( Cat Expressions, and a Bonus Pony ) |
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redbird |
12:29p | |
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supergee |
12:27p | |
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jmeadows |
11:57a | Slush stats Queries: 111 Requests: 3 partials, 1 full Jenny requested a while ago: YA fantasy, romance, YA fantasy, YA fantasy In my inbox: 1 query with referral, 3 partials, 6 fulls ...Yikes. -- jongibbs wrote a comment last week:The no-names version is that [person] a published author. Her neighbor (an unpublished writer) handed her husband a package containing 600, single spaced pages that comprised two manuscripts (written by the neighbor's friend - someone she'd never heard of) with a verbal request that she read them and pass them on to her agent. Heh, yeah, I'd find that annoying, too, were I in the author's place. Generally, it's not polite to ask people to give your manuscript to their agent. (Let alone tell them!) If the writer offers to read the manuscript and likes it enough they think their agent would appreciate it, that's a different thing. That's done all the time, and that does give people a slight nudge up; agents will usually read whatever their clients recommend. As far as I can tell, agents like when their clients send referrals. They're typically less scary than, say, Mr. Queryspammer or CAPSLOCK GUY. There's a guarantee of above-average writing and storytelling. (Hopefully!) So long as the client consistently recommends decent things, I'd say this benefits everyone. If someone kept passing me bad stories, I'd ask them to please stop. :P For the same reason agents only want to submit great, polished stories to editors (their relationship with editors is on the line!), most writers will only recommend great stories to their agents. They don't want their agent to think they have bad taste! Or, for example, if you had a friend who kept telling you to read these stories they loved. Say you read them, because you trust your friend's opinion. But all the stories have plot chasms, characters who don't make sense, or plain bad writing. Eventually, you wouldn't trust your friend's recommendations anymore, right? No matter how well they write. Most writers don't want to be the one with bad taste, so they're only going to recommend things they know are good. But getting a referral is not the same as getting an agent. It's just a leg up. The agent will read a partial or, at best, a full, and then treat it like any other submission.In the end, the agent still has to champion any book they take on. They have to have the right passion, as well as think it's a marketable book. -- I'm still open to questions if anyone has anything. I'm also thinking about doing a few query letters with my reactions as I read, but I'd need volunteers to offer their queries for this. That would give me something to post on weeks I don't have topics. :) Current Mood:  cheerfulCurrent Music: YouTube something on Mom's computer |
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oursin |
4:12p | Linkerie Bluestockings the new black? Another book about another bluestocking, rah-rah - Anna Letitia Barbauld: The reasons why some names stick and others disappear are complex - to do with fashion, gender, attracting a good biographer, and the bad luck of a house fire in which important sources go up in smoke. In Barbauld's case a mixture of several bad breaks means her name is virtually unknown. The most likely reason, thinks McCarthy, is that the younger generation of Romantic poets was extravagantly nasty to her. By the time Wordsworth and Coleridge were climbing to their prime they were desperate to shrug Barbauld off as a fussy old biddy whose rules about rhyme represented everything that needed to be blasted away. And yet, as these formerly angry young men swung to the right in the frightening years after the French revolution, her continuing engagement with progressive politics began to seem dangerously radical. She was simultaneously behind and ahead of her time - a tricky spot if you're hoping to go down in history. So much there that makes me simultaenously nod and wince in recognition. Diana Athill asks the intriguing question what makes a person - me, for one - want to write while others don't? And on writing, while one feels some sympathy for someone with major and long-enduring writers' block, I feel less for someone who sets out to Write The Great Novel and "unless he thought it was going to be better than Tolstoy, he wouldn't commit it to paper", because, really, is dick-sizing against any other writer at all really a helpful or wise strategy, and shouldn't it be, see Athill above, about the personal voice? Wymmynz! ur playss, it b in teh RONG! How, I wonder, is it at all helpful for Oliver James to warn that Getting stressed or anxious during late pregnancy is not just bad for you, it's bad for your foetus - because now you can stress out and worry about being stressed out and worried, this is so not for the win. While Viv Groskop deplores the extent to which breastfeeding is seen as always the admirable and morally high ground choice (is this true? or is this one of those 'my colleagues and a few people I met in the wine-bar last week' factoids?). Oh yes, and Dr Luisa Dillner suggests that too much encouragement of self-esteem in offspring may be counter-productive. Plus, included in the reprint from the New York Times supplement, Michael Chabon, The Wilderness of Childhood. I suppose I am just wondering a bit whether it is really, really true over more than fairly selective social groups that children are no longer roaming around their neighbourhoods and exploring their environment unsupervised, but are constantly surveilled and protected by parents? I see groups of kids around the streets here and in the local playing field. A piece of living history: New York police department still budgeting money for typewriters: Largest police force in US has spent more than $1m in recent years on the purchase and upkeep of the office machines Also living history, and getting very fed-up it would seem with the exploitation of his name and image, 91-year-old Nelson Mandela. Death of living history: Henry Allingham, British first world war veteran, dies at 113. |
| scalzifeed | 3:23p | View From My Window, 7/18/09
It’s not bad. I’m mildly amused to read the comments yesterday concerning whether all y’all should be guessing where I am and tracking me down, etc. The short answer is that it’s probably not impossible to figure out where I am (or was, at least, since I’ve moved on since yesterday), but, you know, I’m on vacation. This is a personal trip, not a professional trip. Not that I think any of you would show up at my doorstep, etc; I suspect you’re all grownups, with grownup senses of boundaries. But even if you did, I wouldn’t have time for you — the days are just packed, as they say, with people and things to do. Hope your days are similarly packed. The only other thing of to report is that I am unbelievably sunburned; my head is currently the shade lobsters get around the time to bring them out of the pot. Aloe lotion and sunblock for me today, as I have to go back out into the sun; also, I’m not sure what my forebears were thinking when they decided to be so pale. Because, really, it’s not working out for me. So. What’s up with you?       |
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sraun |
10:08a | |
| meme_machine_go | 2:12p | That's Lord Guest, you little bimbo! Christopher Guest -- Nigel from Spinal Tap, director and co-writer of Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman, A Mighty Wind -- is an honest-to-gosh hereditary peer of the realm, a UK baron. He is perhaps the only baron ever to have said "lick my love pump" when he knew the camera was on. |
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matociquala |
10:14a | rock and roll is dead i probably shoulda stayed in school Little blossoms and little green tomatoes are growing on the Cherokee Purple, the Black Klim, the Green Zebra, and the Amish Paste tomato plants, and the Reisentraube has bunches of promising flowers. The peas are over and the broccoli went to flower while I was away (alack!) but the carrots and squash are just coming into their own, and the cucumbers are tiny and cute. Also, I just brewed my first cup of tea with the black peppermint and lemon balm, and the parsley and dill went into last night's bouillabaisse. Current Mood:  exhaustedCurrent Music: car talk |
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oursin |
12:29p | Happy birthday, ![[info - personal]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small} thera/thera_flu and unblinkered!This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/1062657.htm |
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supergee |
6:42a | |
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supergee |
5:47a | Walter Cronkite (1916-2009) I am old enough to remember Walter Cronkite saying, "What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times... and you were there." That was before he became the kindly, yet authoritative voice of the news. He rarely expressed opinion, and when he did (we can't win in Vietnam), it mattered. After he retired from broadcasting, he wrote a column, saying sane things about the War on Some Drugs and the Marriage Hogging Amendment, among other things. He altered and illuminated my life, and I'm glad he was there. |
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supergee |
5:46a | |
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mac_stone |
1:55a | |
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guipago |
3:20a | t's been a long day. Lots of things have happened. - My finger is healing nicely. I can almost curl it all the way down and as long as I don't smack it hard against something (heh, guess what I did today...) the pain is drifting off to the numblike itch. Periodically it still cracks open and seeps out nasty blood clots, but overall I'm not worried. The swelling is going down and the new skin is red and soft. I've always been lucky that I heal fairly fast. I'd like to keep it that way :P -Woke up at a better time today. Need to get to bed asap so I can do the same tomorrow. -Nightmares that Scott wanted to leave me. Not for any specific reason or anything I did. He just left. I haven't had one of those in forever. -My mom had a dream last night that I was pregnant. I told Scott and he said "WTF is up with you people?" -Proceeded to deal with all the minutia of leading a guild that has over 100 people in it with both a casual/social section and a raiding section. I really enjoy managing it. Even if some days, like today, I get a headache from all the emotions from everyone involved. 2 weeks worth of small stuff dealt with and yeah. -Spent time researching for the raid that the guild ran tonight. Thorim25 died for the first time after 3 hours of work tonight. I'm very proud of the guild. I also probably pissed 1 or 2 people off in the process, but stupid mistakes need to be fingered before they wipe the raid. I think I need to hang my bitch hat for the day. -Spent about 30 min post raid explaining why I couldn't just randomly take a member of the guild that can only sign up on Fridays. I was dutifully informed that my choices weren't "fair" to which I agreed. However, my choices helped the guild down a new boss. I don't feel bad about it. I do feel for the person that was under discussion, but I've been raid leading and a guild leader for too long to let it effect me too much. -I've decided I'm attracted to two types of people. The bubbly, vivacious kind and the quiet, remote kind. Both types that I'm attracted to also tend to be blunt, bitchy or assholish, and truthful, but that's beside the point. One of the people I've become very close to over the last 2 years is one of the latter and someone I like very much. However, I get the impression that as friendly as we are they like to push me away periodically and it hurts. And part of me is afraid to say anything (and then I do) because their friendship means a LOT to me. -I'm feeling mopey at the moment. Not very good about myself as a person. And slightly worthless, that's the worst feeling on the planet. I spent my youth being a shadow to vivacious people because I was shy, and sometimes that feeling comes back. I've felt very much like a shadow of a person lately. However, if I don't let myself think about it too much I'm ok. I'll be fine. I usually am :) -Managed to walk a mile today without much of a problem. Then pulled off 30 crunches while the dog and I watched the clouds pass overhead. Tomorrow/today we'll do another mile and toss in my requisite pushups. Slowly but surely I'm making myself healthier. -I've also started cooking 1x per week for the whole week. I have a tendency to wait too long before I make food and then reach for junk food instead of good food. This way I have lots of portioned food that's precooked that I can just nuke in the microwave for a week :) It's working well. I'm going from only one or two meals a day to 3-4 small ones and much much healthier foods. Bedtime, mom is taking val and I to the store tomorrow. Current Mood:  contemplative |
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mac_stone |
12:29a | it's complicated... It's too hot to sleep So I'm clicking my way around Youtube, instead. My god. Remember this one? I was a kid, and it's very weird to me that there are adults who weren't even born yet: |
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rosefox |
1:57a | |
| Friday, July 17th, 2009 | ||
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aamcnamara |
11:59p | skimming along 70058 / 80000 Well, I have 70k. And I'm back to thinking "oh no I will not have enough for the rest of this novel!". But clearly I just spent a thousand words, well, not doing all that much--I mean, it was important, just that there were not tons of things happening--so I probably will be all right. Because it is late, I am stopping in the middle of a Very Active Scene. Possibly the most Active Scene so far, or at least the longest. At least tomorrow there will be very obvious things to happen next. I hate it when I've stopped writing the day before because I wrote everything I knew about, and then I have to sit there and figure out What Happens Next. Also, I am not entirely certain how this is all going to work out in the end. There is one key element which got lost earlier in the novel, and... well, let's just say it's going to be interesting. |
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skzbrust |
10:49p | Words Feed problem Apparently, my last several posts from my blog, Words Words Words, have not been appearing here--getting some sort of weird transport error. Until we get this figured out, the RSS feed is still working at least. |
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matociquala |
11:47p | Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn Massive cephalopod beachings in California. Masses of oceanic protoplasm in the Arctic. (Shoggoth killed by global warming?) ...R'lyeh is supposed to be in the Atlantic, right? ...right? Current Mood:  worried |
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yhlee |
8:26p | since it'll be a few days before I can get to my PCP Both of my upper arms have developed persistent small (round, a few millimeters in diameter) bruises, or things that look like bruises, except they don't hurt, my arms feel fine, no itching, pain, nothing. On the other hand, they've been new for the past, um, few weeks maybe? and I'm starting to worry about them. I will see my doctor when I get back to Pasadena, but in the meantime, does anyone know offhand if they are a Dire Symptom of Something? |
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marykaykare |
7:48p | Walter Cronkite, 1916-2009 There are no words adequate to explain to those of a younger generation just how wrong a world without Walter Cronkite is. I was 11 when I first noticed Walter Cronkite. I can just remember the news going from 15 to 30 minutes in fall of 1963. Of course, I remember quite clearly Cronkite's announcement and coverage of Kennedy's assassination a bit later that year. The story of the following days and funeral are all told in that deep baritone. The beginning of the end of the Viet Nam conflict was dominated by that voice. He retired from the evening news in 1981 when I was 29. From ages 11 to 29 he was the voice of the news, shaping my outlook on the world, reporters, and even space exploration. I was quite a space fan and that story is also narrated pretty much solely in that voice. He never completely disappeared from public life, even after his retirement and was always around to give us the most important of the news. I've always been a news junkie and Walter was always there to feed me. One of the founding pillars of the public life of my time is gone and mortality lays its heavy hand on our hearts and minds. Current Mood:  sad |
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ellarien |
8:36p | 17.7.09 Waiting for luggage at the Tucson airport. I can smell smoke from the fire near Kitt Peak. |
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copperwise |
7:14p | |
