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Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
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3:01 pm - IZ 223 now out
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12:23 pm - because this deserves sharing
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Monday, July 6th, 2009
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4:18 pm
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It really irritates me when people complain endlessly about how awful something is, when they clearly have no interest in trying anything different. Or complain endlessly about how terrible their life is, when they have no interest in making it better.
Sheesh, people! Being unhappy shouldn't be seen as a way of life worth clinging to.
current mood:  aargh!
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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Saturday, July 4th, 2009
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1:03 am
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Added another 400 words tonight to the flesh-eating-bacteria story, bringing it to about 5800. It's definitely heading with all speed out of short story territory, and though I hope to revise out a fair bit of it on the second pass, it's not going to make it back down under that magic 7500 word line.
Oh well. The story is as it needs to be. I'll worry about the length later.
Main character was proving to be a bit of a wuss, but I backtracked a bit and beefed up his spine and initiative, so though he's still seriously freaked out he's at least now doing something other than standing there saying "ohgod-ohgod-ohgod" over and over again.
And I got to add a few gory pandemic multiple-drug-resistant flesh-eating-bacteria details. Yummo!
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(comment on this)
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Friday, June 26th, 2009
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12:08 pm - #93
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Thursday, June 25th, 2009
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9:48 pm - Life on Mars!
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Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
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10:23 pm - Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Day
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(What, we don't get a month? I mean, it's not like anyone is doing anything else useful with August!)
According to various online sources (so it must be true!) today is Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Day. "Tell an SFF writer you love 'em -- or, at least that you appreciate their influence on your life," says the passed-along blurbage.
( Whoa, that got long! Better put it behind a cut. )
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(comment on this)
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Sunday, June 21st, 2009
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10:22 pm - other people have been far more articulate about this, but...
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I have had the great fortune to live in a time and a place where I have a good deal of freedom. It's not perfect, and it's always under some degree of threat from conservative wingnut corners of our society, but I have had the right -- and I have exercised it -- to make my own reproductive choices independent of anyone else's imposed "morality". I have a professional job in a male-dominated field. Assuming I ever meet someone I want to spend my life with, I can choose of my own free will to marry them regardless of gender, regardless of race, regardless of religion. I don't have to walk around with my hair covered up, or my whole body concealed under thick robes, lest someone think I'm sexy (ha!) and be led thus down a path to wicked temptation. Other than for weddings and funerals, I haven't set foot in a church of my own volition in decades. I owe nothing to any god not of my own fickle choosing (right now, I'm grateful to the god of comfy things I can put my feet up on while I'm sitting at my desk) and the state of my soul, and whether or not I even believe in such a thing, is solely my own concern.
Never have I been unaware that I have freedoms that other women don't have, or that someday could be taken away from my own children or grandchildren. I think it's been long enough since we've really had to fight for something that we've forgotten what that means, or the price that sometimes gets paid, often arbitrarily and always mercilessly, in blood.
I don't, in general, feel like my life has much in common with that of people in Iran. It's a completely different world, though the overlaps are sometimes startling. But I see the news and it breaks my heart. I know what's happening isn't just about women's rights, but they are the ones with the most to gain, and the most already lost. These women could be my own ancestors. They could be my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren who may someday have to fight again for their own freedom. I don't know these women, will never meet them or even pass them on the street, but I care about them, and I fear for them. Even if this particular struggle, and these particular women's losses (and, one hopes, their victories) do not in any way belong to us as individuals, they are ours as women. They are ours as human beings.
Even if all I can do is pay attention, I pay attention. And I mourn.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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1:17 am
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1000 words added to the FEB story. They have now found the first victim.
Interestingly, the character I expected to get somewhat hysterical at the dead, bloody body on the floor only said, "That's not good."
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(comment on this)
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Friday, June 19th, 2009
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12:26 am - dull wordcount report
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Added about 600 words to the FEB story tonight, which is both less than I'd hoped and more than I thought I was going to manage. Hey, I've had three nights in a row of spending most of my night holding a fussy baby, so any movement forward is miraculous. The next sequence has tricky logistics, so I'll need my map and a working brain before I get much further. Maybe this weekend will bring naps and happier babes. Keep your fingers crossed, eh?
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(comment on this)
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Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
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11:24 pm - cat-vacuuming
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I realized I was stalled on the FEB story because I needed a good mental picture of the scene of the action. So, despite being absolutely exhausted and full of ouch, I stayed up until 1:00am last night and also spent all of tonight after the babies went to bed making a detailed floorplan of my moonbase. And, barring the realization that I've forgotten something critical, I'm finished!
(Wanna see?)
So now I can totally picture how the action moves back and forth, and I can make a few existing paragraphs less vague, and I can make a whole lot of future paragraphs with confidence.
Cat-vacuuming, but all in all time well-spent.
current mood:  okay, now back to the work
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(5 comments | comment on this)
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Saturday, June 13th, 2009
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9:14 pm - so completely, entirely wrong
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Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
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11:50 pm
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3200 words on the FEB story. Nobody's died yet, but we're getting really close... This story is unfolding slower than usual, which means I expect I'm gonna end up with something of distinctly unsaleable length. )-: Whatever; the story is as it needs to be, and I'm not going to worry about the length until after the first draft is finished.
This is why I like to write novels.
Having written a novel, that's why I write short stories.
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(comment on this)
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2:06 pm - meme me!
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Monday, June 8th, 2009
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12:59 pm - FYI for my massachusetts friends
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It appears that the RMV has stopped sending out renewal notices when your license is about to expire.
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(9 comments | comment on this)
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12:45 am
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Things accomplished today:
Folded, sorted, and put away the gigantic mountain of baby clothes, including pulling out stuff that's now out of season or too small.
A few more rocks added to the stone wall, which is coming along nicely (and faster than I expected.)
Got the last yew stump out of the ground at last, and a rhododendron and boxwood planted in its stead.
Planted the jack-in-the-pulpits, daylilies, and irises from the last plant shopping expedition. A house I pass on my daily commute has this gorgeous clump of miniature white irises, so I made a stop at the local garden center to see if they had any and no luck. )-: Did pick up a lychnis, though, and planted that. The only things remaining unplanted are the may apples.
Laundry for tomorrow now in dryer, bottles washed, dishes done.
All that with screaming-teething-hell babies. A. only took a very short half-hour nap, and didn't fall asleep until around 11:30pm tonight.
No writing done. Cookies were consumed.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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Sunday, June 7th, 2009
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4:07 pm - hmmmm
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Why yes, it turns out that rock WAS too heavy for me to move on my own without hurting myself. I suspected as much to begin with.
current mood:  ibuprofen! ibuprofen!
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(8 comments | comment on this)
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12:38 am
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I have now successfully placed the paragraphs that fall between Act I and Act II of the FEB story, wherein the authorial figure, dressed in black to minimize visibility to the reader-audience, shuffles the props and other bits of set around and gives the players the time they need to prepare for their next scene. It may seem like a trivial bit, the frenetic but necessarily discreet rearrangement between the "important bits", but it's an awful lot of *work* sometimes.
2700 total words so far. Tomorrow, if screaming-teething-feversick babies give me more than a moment's escape, Act II shall begin.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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Thursday, June 4th, 2009
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8:21 pm - my morning commute
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I've mentioned in the past that I've got a 52 mile round-trip commute every day (thanks to having to drop my kids off all over the place) which goes home-school-daycare-work, work-daycare-school-home. Unlike when I lived near Boston and most of my time was spent being stuck in a bumper-to-bumper borderline-road-rage traffic hell, my current commute is very scenic and mellow. Near as I can figure I drive by at least six different kinds of cows every day, seven when I go to the chiropractor and drive by the bison farm.
So, really, my commute is more like:( tedious but vaguely narratively-important description )
Despite doing lots of driving, it's a really nice, mellow, sort of zen trip. There's a total of three traffic lights and one four-way stop, though I go through them more than once.
It takes me about 12 min to get from home to the big kid's school, 25 from there to daycare, and 15 from there back to work. Today, though, it took me two hours.
Because, despite having no plans to do so, I stopped for nearly an hour by the side of the road.
( Here's why. Pic heavy, ya been warned )
Anyhow, that was today's commute. And when I picked up the big kid from school this afternoon, she had a bucket of rescued tadpoles with her from a nearly dried-up pond, so there may be some emergency home pond construction happening this summer. Anyone want to help?
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ETA: and I'm once again grateful to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) llcoolvad for the suggestion that one should always carry one's camera, no matter how uninteresting one expects the day to be, because you just never know.
current mood:  strange days indeed
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(18 comments | comment on this)
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12:48 pm
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oh boy, will I have pics for y'all when I get home from work tonight...
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(comment on this)
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sigh
