Shakespeare Squad

The writer's retreat went really, really well: most importantly, I got a ton of writing done, including a solid outline for my next WIP and about 17,000 words into the current WIP. Not too shabby, especially as the first day was mostly settling in and I had to leave early in order to catch up on UDON work before the late July con blitz. It was nice to get to know the other folks in my critique group better, and the cottage itself was really nice, aside from one odd thing we found in the darkest part of the woods:



Giant. Wooden. Cross. We made sure to keep the doors locked at night after that!



The full set is up on flickr here.

Sadly, I am back to some very disappointing news, which has knocked a lot of the retreat's momentum out from under my feet. All I can really do is focus on upcoming work stuff (we leave Thursday morning for a two-city tour including Baltimore for Otakon and San Diego for SD Comic Con) and try not to wallow overmuch.

On the up side, Jim and I haven't yet finalized plans for our August vacation. I enjoyed the retreat so much, we are talking about doing a mini-retreat of our own, ducking off to his parent's cottage for a week of writing, art, and mutual cheerleading.

Typically, I'm a kill-your-own-critters kind of gal. Spiders, centipedes, flies and roaches: I've squashed 'em all with only the smallest of shudders. Wasps & bees freak me out, but I've mastered the art of quietly moving away, instead of squeaking and flailing like I did when I was a kid. So it caught me off guard when I opened the pantry this morning, spotted a mouse...

And screamed. Full-on blood-curdling scream. Naturally, the mouse ran, and so did Jim to make sure I was okay. Awkward. Apparently you can add mice to the list of "things I can not be expected to handle properly before coffee"*

Anyway. We suspect the mice are from next door. A ransacking of the pantry turned up small evidence of their presence, and the neighbours spent the weekend tearing out internal walls, so they probably haven't been here long. I spent the day cleaning and sealing all the food away in plastic bins; hopefully, if ZubHaus seems like too much trouble, they'll move along just as quickly.

In rodent-free news, Jim & I checked out one of the Fringe Festival shows last night, Out of Character, mostly because we know the writer and several of the actors. Overall, we really enjoyed it; I'm not sure how easy some of the transitions would be to follow if you weren't familiar with live-action roleplaying already, but the performances were strong enough to carry the audience through a few minor bumps in the structure.


* - Also on the list of "things I can not be expected to handle properly before coffee": locating matched socks, responding properly to bad news, reliably placing one foot in front of the other, navigating around walls.

Work-busy the past few days, as I'm trying to finish up a bunch of UDON tasks before the writer's retreat next week. My fab critique group is heading off to a remote(ish) cottage for a six-day writing blitz, which is going to be great even if I can only stick around for four days. Hopefully a couple of distraction-free days will help me crack the voice problems in my current WIP and get the bloody thing back on track.

I took a break on Canada Day to celebrate, which was nice. There wasn't as much going on as usual, thanks to the city council's poor PR decision to shut down Canada Day events instead of negotiating with the striking city workers about it, but I did get to attend a swearing-in ceremony for new citizens, acquire some tiny Canadian flags, and thank a couple of volunteers and veterans for their service.

It was also a week of many errands: new cellphone, new glasses, and a much-delayed appointment with my hair stylist. ( New hair and a new convenience store in my neighbourhood: )

Sorry for the random. I've got errands to run before heading out to a wedding this afternoon, and I've run out of coffee (quelle horror!).

After boasting recently to friends about the durability of my eight-year-old cellphone, the inevitable has occurred:



Yeah. I don't think flip phones are supposed to flip quite so much.



The gruesome damage.

This actually happened almost a week ago, but I've been stalling on getting a replacement, for the same reason I kept my old phone for eight years: I'm always paranoid that I'll make the wrong choice and pay for it down the road. This happens with writing as well, mostly at the start of a new book: I hop from idea to idea, not quite getting a foothold on any one because I'm always casting sidelong glances at my other options. Once I've committed about 10,000 words, that distraction gets pushed out, but I suspect it explains why my opening chapters tend to need more editing than later pieces of the story.

Anyway. The New York Dolls are playing in town tonight, which leaves me with the same feeling I always have when some seminal band from my youth comes rolling through town on a reunion tour: why? Seeing the Dolls even in the late 80s/mid-90s would have been awesome, but the moment has passed, and dropping $35 to roll around in the nostalgia of the punk rock kid I used to be seems kinda pointless. That said, I am thinking of going to a retro goth night instead, but that's mostly because I am still a retro goth in many ways. Yes, yes, mock away. I bought my first black lipstick over 20 years ago; you don't have a snide comment that I haven't heard a dozen times before.

I am completely failing in my efforts to maintain this blog on a more regular basis, aren't I? Perhaps I need a fixed schedule: I hereby vow to update at least twice a week (measured Monday through Sunday) for the next, say, eight weeks. That ought to get me back in the habit.

Part of my reluctance to update comes from being far too well ingrained with that old adage, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all". 2009 has been a hard slog thus far, and every time I've opened the "new post" window, nothing's come out but vitriol. Which is, you know, not that entertaining, unless you happen to be a master of the vitriolic arts like Harlan Ellison.

Hence, I have declared 2009 to be over. All hail 2009.5!

It seems a bit pathetic, but since I declared the start of 2009.5 earlier this week, things have started looking up. I've made progress on a couple of seriously stuck work issues, battered back my grumpy mood, and seen a few glimmers of light along the very long publication tunnel. It's a little embarrassing, how well superstitious tricks work to reset my brain, but I'm not about to argue with success, even when it comes with a heaping dose of mumbo-jumbo.

Clickety-links!

The LEGENDS OF ZORK folks have made a promo trailer for the game, featuring lots of Jim's artwork. He's also posting art from the game on his art blog.

Jillian Venter's first book, GOTHIC CHARM SCHOOL, was released last week. She's been doing some enthusiastic blogging about her book tour experiences on her LJ, including this charming photo from her first signing!

And in UDON news, the DARKSTALKERS TRIBUTE book debuts at Anime Expo in LA next week! Erik, Matt & Omar will be there to sign copies; some preview pages are up at the pre-order page. Huzzah!

Janet Reid points out something about BEA that I was reluctant to mention: the HarperCollins booth had no books. They had e-Galleys, which I snagged, and they were handing out books during signing sessions (which I kept missing out on due to meetings), but the legendary stacks of advance copies from past BEAs were gone.

From a publisher perspective, I'm not sure that's an entirely bad thing. The ARCs we printed for the Manga for Kids line were pricey - more expensive than the final print run books - and you want to be sure that investment winds up in the hands of people whose (hopeful) support will make a difference in sales down the line. Most of our initial press coverage came from PDF review copies, which were available weeks before the ARCs even; although with a visual medium like manga, the final print quality of the books does make a difference to reader enjoyment, and that's not something you can capture in an e-galley.

That said, she's absolutely right about the lack of appeal with the postcard-style e-gallerys HarperCollins was handing out. I haven't downloaded a single one yet, not even RAMPANT, the new Diana Peterfreund novel about killer unicorns which is on my fall must-read list.

I think it would make more sense to offer e-galleys with some sample pages, an inexpensive ashcan booklet of 20-odd pages that would provide a writing taste and, hopefully, interest the reader enough that they have to go download the e-galley to read the rest. People like to know what they're getting into before they download a file, I suspect, and if the book is solid, then the first chapter or two would tip the balance from "I'll download it eventually" to "I have to read the rest of this right now".

First off, many thanks to my pal Phil Rickaby, who sent me some very useful links and advice regarding WordPress which have finally allowed to me update the site to something that doesn't make me want to gouge my own eyes out. Much.

Today was a fairly crap day, pretty much from the get-go. Woke up tired, muddled around waiting for a Fed Ex delivery, had my laptop battery die mid-fight scene in a cafe with no plugs and too many loud children, found out my boyfriend is staying in China for an extra day and my screenprinting studio is closing their doors at the end of the month, permanently, which leaves me without a workspace once again.

Also, the sidewalk outside ZubHaus is littered with dog poop and cigarette butts. Thanks, neighbours!

ANYWAY. It has been the kind of crap day that people are talking about when they talk about Mondays as if the word is inherently diseased. Mondays. The kind of day that is barely salvaged by a Neil Gaiman reading, even though he read a marvelous story from the "Who Killed Amanda Palmer" book that I am now sort of wishing I'd pre-ordered instead of being sensible, and was asked some very interesting questions by Mark Askwith, who is always very sharp about these sorts of things.

Fortunately, tomorrow is another day, and one that is highly unlikely to be Monday. People rarely say Tuesday as if it's a fatal illness, after all.

Operation Sock Monkey is an awesome volunteer troupe that supports Clowns Without Borders South Africa by creating sock monkeys to be used in shows, therapy sessions and as gifts for orphaned kids. When we heard they were hosting a Sock-Monkey-athon yesterday afternoon, Panic & I (and her awesome boyfriend) just had to check it out.



Here's Stella and Frankie (short for Frankenstein), ready to head out on their African adventure together!

Panic wasn't too happy with her sock monkey a lot of the time, but she did come to accept her slightly mutant child:



Heh. Panic was kind enough to do an early copy edit on BEARERS, and is in general an all-round kick-ass lady. Also, we often have to explain to people that we are not the same person. We are almost exactly the same height and weight, we're both late December babies, and we're both prone to babbling about the state of the Canadian literary scene at the slightest prompting. It is, perhaps, a little creepy.

Anyway, Operation Sock Monkey needs 100 sock monkeys by the end of the month, and probably another 100 before the end of the summer. So I think I have a new crafting hobby! Because really: kids, clowns, monkeys. What could be better?

Jim's still in China; his trip has been extended an extra day. Luckily I have so much work to get done this week that I don't have time to pout about it (much).

I'm accustomed to being one of those people who has zero interest in celebrity gossip, so it's awkward to discover the source of my disinterest isn't in gossip itself, but in the celebrities being covered. If anyone plans to start a gossip site focused on authors, punk rock musicians and Japanese fashion designers, you can count me among your subscribers.

(context)

Jim's on a plane to China right now; aside from work-related phone calls and barrista chatter, I haven't spoken to a single person in three days. This makes me happy in a way I can't properly explain, except to say that it's nice to enjoy one's own company once in a while.

Also, I am getting a *lot* of editing done.



NYC horse stables, en route to the Javits Center.

Back from Book Expo America with a mild case of Con Crud, the low-fever, head-spinning sore throat ailment bred from meeting too many people in too short a time span while coping with airplanes, airports, awkward hotel rooms and strange new tap water.

(note to self: NY tap water will make your bangs look terrible all weekend long. Consider traveling with bottled Toronto tap water in future)

But at least I am home, with a head full of new ideas and great new contacts (along with the Con Crud). Jim is now in LA, and will be in China after that, and it feels like a very long nine days until I will see him again.

I have plans to crash & burn my website this week, which seems to be the only way to effect an upgrade on Wordpress thanks to some wonkiness with my webserver set-up. If you've got me on an RSS feed, and you don't see any more posts from me this week, you may need to re-sub!