SO PRETTY! I’m so excited – it’s beginning to feel real!

And before anyone asks – they’re all pretty much spoken for (that didn’t take long, eh?).

To celebrate getting in author copies, I’ll give away two signed copies right here. I’ll even throw in some matching bookmarks. Just comment either here on my website journal or on my LJ and you’ll be entered to win a signed copy (continental US only please). You have between now and 12:00 noon on December 29th (release day!) to comment.

ETA — I’m also going to give away two copies on Goodreads (what the hell, right?) so if you have a Goodreads account, sign up to enter over there too! The URL isn’t up yet, but I’ll post it when it is. Good luck!

Mirrored from Jill Myles Dot Com.

batwrangler's photo of the grim, Slavic Father Christmas I made for my mom, out of that cinnamon applesauce playdough stuff:

Naveen Alexander Shipman was born today at 2:50 pm. 6 lb, 13.7 ounces, mom and baby doing fine.

ashacat is inexpressibly relieved; netcurmudgeon is ecstatic. 

I'm going over in a few minutes to take care of his brother so dad can go back to the hospital for a few hours.

i_hope_that
For many of us, the holidays can be kind of rough. If you're searching for a network of understanding friends, this ultra-nurturing community encourages you to express your heartfelt wishes and offer other members encouragement and acceptance. Not for the terminally snarky or emotionally-challenged, this is a good-spirited place to lend comfort and support.

diygifts
Feeling crafty? If you've got a few last folks on your holiday gift list, this is a great place to seed your creativity and generosity. You'll also discover wonderful DIY tips to decorate your home and entertain guests. Offering a no-frills-no-skills attitude that welcomes the cash-challenged and arts-phobic, you're sure to get ideas and make friends in the process.

cooking_club
A fun and friendly community dedicated to those who love to cook, whether you're a meat-and-potatoes type, an aspiring gourmand, and/or a vegan. In search of a brilliant dish to use up those weekly leftovers? Post your ingredients and you'll be whipping up a feast by dinner. You can also share favorite recipes. For Type A chefs, you can spice up your culinary repertoire with exciting cooking challenges.

sjday: Your expectations are exceedingly high these days, making it d... More for Pisces http://ping.fm/XP54X http://bit.ly/5NUdfa

Just in case you haven't picked up a Christmas present for your *cough, cough* favorite urban fantasy writer yet, maybe you should think about the Blood Pen.

Bob Partington built this one of a kind bio-mechanical horror. While you write, the plunger of a syringe if slowly, continuously pressed, dripping blood onto the nip of the pen. check out the video to see the Blood Pen in action.

It would also make a great gift for lawyers, cell phone salespeople, or anybody else who needs a lot of contracts signed in blood.

#51.) Kelly Gay, The Better Part of Darkness

[redacted pending review elsewhere]

#52.) Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.

Brilliant. Go read it now.

---

Lovely evening today stacking wood and eating food with friends and family. Mmm, food.

And I’m starting to feel a little impatient. It’s like I’m in a car, sitting in traffic. I can see the light I need to get to up ahead, but in front of me is an endless line of crawling cars. And all I want to do is STOMP ON THE GAS AND GET MOVING.

Yeah, publishing is like that sometimes.

In the meantime, there’s plenty of cool stuff going on to keep me mentally busy. I just spent all morning wrapping Christmas presents and going through my bookshelves. I have a few old favorites that I’ve pulled out to re-read: Julie Garwood, Judith Mcnaught, Johanna Lindsay, Jude Deveraux and Donald Maass (HEH – which one of these does not belong, eh?). Work is bound to be slammed this week since it will be a short week. Survivor Finale tonight (Go Foa Foa!) and that Christmas thing should be popping up this weekend too…

Mirrored from Jill Myles Dot Com.

sjday: If you recently decided to make improvements to your lifestyle... More for Pisces http://ping.fm/d7YAC http://bit.ly/6ehFuL

All right everybody — I’m about to go quasi-radio-silent for a bit. Tomorrow at the butt-crack of dawn I’ll be leaving for Kentucky, to spend Christmas with my dad (et. al.); so although I’ll have internet access once I get there, you may reasonably expect that my internet appearances will be intermittent at best.

Of course, I’ll probably Tweet.
Because it’s easy, and I’m lazy (and busy).

Anyway, have excellent and happy holidays — everybody, everywhere. Best wishes, good luck, and a superlative New Year to all. I’ll catch up with you when I can.

:)

[Crossposted to/from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so either here or there.]

I woke up late.  That is I woke up early because Stripe sat under our bedroom window going, “Meeeeeeeoooww.  Meeyayayayayyaooow.  Meow!!”  So I got up and let him in.  Then I passed out.

When I woke up, everybody was already up and apparently the dogs had roughhoused, probably with Gordon, because the tray table I keep next to my chair was pushed all the way onto the right armrest. I write in a big rocking chair.  When I was a child, I was diagnosed with severe scoliosis.  (Not a surprise, my Dad’s left shoulder is higher than his right.) My parents took me to the pool.  Six years of swimming corrected my spine, but there is a spot in my right shoulder blade that hurts like a sonovabitch after any sort of prolonged sitting in a regular computer chair.  I also get it if I knit for several hours straight.  I have this absurd feeling that if only I could jam the knitting needle into my back, it would all be fine.  But anyway, because I sometimes spend ten hours in front of the screen, Gordon and the kids bought me this big, supercomfy recliner.  Now I write with a wireless keyboard on my lap.

So where was I?  Right.  Chair –> tray –> me.

Of course, I didn’t see the tray/armrest situation.  I went, got myself the nice big cup of coffee in my favorite coffee mug, white with gold snowflakes.

I set my coffee onto the tray.

I sat into the chair.

Chair rocked back.

Coffee cup went flying and an inch long chunk of it chipped off.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from One Crazy Dame. Comment here or there

Eeek! The spindle came!

And it brought a friend!



Thank you, thatpotteryguy! Did you make the mug? I am assuming. It's lovely!

Now to find some fiber.....

16 degrees this morning, 6 with windchill. We're waiting for the snowpocalypse.

tea today: peppermint
teacup today: the little orange and white Chinese teacup I got at a Chinese grocery in Ann Arbor.

Up too late last night and awoke too early this morning for somebody who's supposed to be sleeping off a sore throat, but I kind of forgot to eat dinner yesterday (yeah, swallowing when your throat hurts sucks) so I got woken up by being hungry. Leftover oatmeal is becoming blueberry oatcakes as we speak, though, never fear, and I am unlikely to waste away.

Tonight, we expect a great big snowdump (It's currently beating up my friends in Maryland and Virginia) and I plan to spend today on more reading. Didn't get as much done yesterday on that front as I wanted--got distracted with side projects, Shadow Unit-related work, and talking to friends about Major Life Issues. Like you do sometimes.

Also made the last December Non-Denominational Gift-Giving Day presents, which I need to package up today and mail out on Monday. Or maybe next Monday, because the nice thing about DNDGGD is that it's not any particular day at all, so as long as you get it done in December, you're all good!

I did read a wonderful very short story yesterday, though. Sherman Alexie's "Distances," which is science fiction and four pages long and one the best after-the-bomb stories I have ever read. Simply amazing. I wish I'd known of its existence when I was writing my comments on my story in JJA's Wastelands anthology, because it would have affected what I said.

But now you know, so you have no excuses. (I've read Alexie's YA fiction, but this is my first time through The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, and it's just as good as everybody says it is. Not that he needs my hard sell)

I read it, told everybody on twitter how much I loved it, and promptly went back and read it again. It reminds me of, oh. "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas." Except different and wonderful. But it hits me in the same place, and it's as tiny and perfect and beautifully made.

Got thirty farm fresh eggs at the agricultural co-op on the corner when I went in to see if they carry Ace's dog food (they don't) so I suspect lunch is going to be an omelette. *g*

And now breakfast is ready, so it's time to microwave my beloved barley neck pillow and start that reading.  Who would have thought I'd choose a career that was nothing but homework?

sjday: You are more attracted to unusual people today, especially if ... More for Pisces http://ping.fm/i8beU http://bit.ly/8Cnl31

So here's the thing. One of the hardest things to deal with about being a science fiction writer is the scope of the material. Almost all of us cheat, because the universe is so... inconceivably vast that it's almost impossible to work with. So we work around it.

I keep hoping someday I'll write something that captures how that universe really looks and feels to me. I imagine if I ever swing it, it will be excoriated, but I still think it's a worthy goal. It's awfully neat out there, even if we don't, in the face of it, matter. (Am I unique in not finding that particularly bleak prospect? Sometimes, I think I am. The vast indifference of heaven feels rather inevitable, to me.)

Recently, I've been exposed to two pieces of art that capture that scale, in some regard.

One is here. It's called The Known Universe. 



It's a planetarium show from the American Museum of Natural History.

Another is a spoken-word piece by Peter Mulvey, entitled Vlad the Astrophysicist. You can listen to a live recording here. Right-click to download, and crank the volume: it's soft.

I wonder, sometimes, if that is why so many people cling to what they cling to, even when it's patently cruel or ridiculous. Because we are so small, and the universe is so very large, and we matter so little to it. And we are not adapted to deal with that. We are very, inherently, biologically, solipsistic.

But I kind of think all that emptiness is beautiful.

morning temperature: -1 (with wind chill), 8 without
tea today: bancha. I awoke headache-free this morning, and am declaring myself sufficiently detoxed, though I'm going to stay off the hard stuff for a while.
teacup today: a very pretty brown Chinese-style tea bowl my dad sent me from North Carolina.  It's slightly larger than a cannonical Chinese teacup, but smaller (though deeper) than a custard cup.

Still no fever, but the sore throat persists. I believe it to be the source of the cough rather than otherwise. No fever (99 degrees fresh out of a hot shower this morning) and no swollen tonsils. I did have a lymph node that was a bit poky-outy on Monday; suspect it was fighting a rearguard action against the virus. Poor noble lymph node. You will be recollected in the annals. (Mentioned In Dispatches. *g*)

Today, I still have no brain for storytelling, so I am going to work on my book review columns, which means trying to find something to read in this pile of somewhat scary books with naked backs and slave collar imagery that doesn't bounce off the nearest available wall inside of ten pages. Wish me luck.

In other news, a little link salad for a Friday morning:

Monster fireball dominates Geminid sky--a really spectacular APOD today. One of the few things I miss about Nevada is the stargazing. It's pretty much a wash out here. You can find places that are dark enough, but... actually getting a clear night in Winter?

via jaylake

Titan has lakes! eeeeeee!

One of my earliest memories is reading National Geographic with my maternal grandfather. He was a plumber and an immigrant, self-educated, and passionately interested in science and the natural world. I got my habit of reading encyclopedias from him. he never thought it was weird.

When I was just about knee-sitting sized, the Voyagers were passing the gas giants. And NG was full of amazing photos. I know this stuff is everyday, now. But back then... we'd never seen anything like it.

It still gives me a little tight feeling in my chest to see something like a lake on another goddamned planet.

We are tidal beings. In this case, that tide is galactic....

and via hominysnark:


...I'm kind of in love.

And this? This is hysterical. And so NSFW:

sjday: You can feel the tension building at work today, yet you canno... More for Pisces http://ping.fm/bAQkP http://bit.ly/8nN0cX