A Quick, Happy Update
I’m in the midst of packing (I have lost track of how much packing I’ve done this year, between actually moving house to D.C. and the frequent flights to home, Vegas, LA, and Ghana) but have time to fire off some quick notes. First off, packing is a wonderful way to clean house. You really make a decision about an item’s true value if admitting its value means carrying it with you and/or finding a corner of suitcase to stuff it in. I’ve managed to clean through my story...
Read MoreI propose Arkenberg’s Law of Blogging
Arkenberg’s Law of Blogging goes thus: The number of blogworthy items occuring in one’s life exists in inverse proportion to the amount of time one has to blog, resulting in less blogging the more there is to blog about. I suppose this could even deserve the name of Arkenberg’s Paradox of Blogging. Unless someone else has observed it first, in which case I am highly embarassed. So, what’s going on in my life that is blogworthy, but I have no time to blog on it? I have...
Read MorePrint Books that are *Good* for the Planet
Being surrounded by the printed word (and intending to remain so my entire life–much as I enjoy ebooks, I like to keep paper copies for backup), I remain acutely conscious that it’s called “dead tree”s for a reason. Also, ever since my trip to Ghana I’ve had a horror of plastic. It’s bad enough seeing litter at the side of the road in the US, but I saw bags and discarded packaging piling up in places I never would have expected–water canals, forest,...
Read MoreWisCon 37–A Partial Review
I was certain I wouldn’t make it to WisCon this year, coming as it did right before my moving trip to Washington, D.C. But with some last-minute crunch and a willingness to run around disoriented (I’ve learned these will get you far in life, or at least lead me very far afield), I made it for at least the weekend and Friday evening. Friday:After hurriedly packing for DC, I stuffed my backpack with my immediate needs for one weekend and set out to brave the Memorial Day weekend...
Read MoreThe Plants of Middle-Earth: Botany and Sub-Creation by Dinah Hazell
What a charming book! Like The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges’ Library of Babel, this was a find made in the American University library shelves. It stood out not only for the title (of all things it was sub-creation I was drawn to; the concept is Tolkien’s gift to the fantasy genre far more than any number of medieval worlds and elves) but also its soothingly soft green cloth binding with gold letters. Inside, it is gorgeously illustrated with drawings and...
Read MoreIndieGoGo Campaign for Self-Publishing a Book on Publishing
Long story short, I’m living off what I earn through my writing right now. This isn’t so bad, except writing income tends to arrive over the course of months, and is less than helpful when you need money right away. So to meet some expenses in the meantime, I’m hiring myself out as a manuscript editor and self-publishing a guidebook for writers who want to get their work into print. The Starter Guide for Professional Writers is a whole-picture handbook that helps you finish your...
Read MoreCurrently Reading: William Goldbloom Bloch, The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges’ Library of Babel
This is a book that, fittingly perhaps, I am reading because I discovered it in the library. The library at American University, that is. Not the Library of Babel. Although this book could, conceivably, be discovered in the Library of Babel. I wouldn’t give much for your chances of finding it, but it’s possible. The central challenge Jorge Luis Borges poses to any writer is that he has, at least on a meta level, surpassed and completed us. Any story we can ever write has...
Read MoreMy 48 hours of the 24 Hours of Gallifrey One
After last year at Gallifrey Network 23, which seemed to last forever (in a good way…and, also in a good way, its effects never quite ended…) this year it flew by way too fast. I think mostly because I missed Thursday night LobbyCon and Friday’s opening and panels. Last year, my school and volunteerism schedule was much more forgiving and allowed me to take 5 days off from them. When I registered for a second helping, I had no idea I’d be in Washington, D.C. this...
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