Lyda Morehouse's Blog, page 71

May Need More Coffee

I may need to put another pot on this morning. It seems like it really wants to be one of THOSE DAYS. I was awakened from a lovely dream about flying to ice and snow on the car. I bundled out only to discover that the ice wasn't nearly as bad as it looked. The car doors, of course, froze a bit. They always do this with the slightest amount of provocation. It's irritating.

Got Shawn to work and Mason to school. As we headed to school, I realized that some people were already having a MUCH worse day than I was, because we saw a stranded school bus on Kellogg near John Ireland Boulevard. Mason and I talked a long time about cascading bad luck, because not only were the kids who were in the bus going to be late, but all the kids waiting on the bus were going to be wondering what was going on... AND on top of that the bus and its tow truck were taking up one whole lane on Kellogg which mean traffic was backing up on to highway 94 and all the way down to University Avenue.

That made me realize that no matter how rough things were this morning, a lot of people were having it a lot worse.

And although Mason had to do some of his homework in the car this morning, we managed to get it done exactly by the first bell at 8:10 am. We found out that today is International Herding Cats day from the gym teacher, who always keeps us abreast of such things, and Mason remembered to bring in the Multiplication Rock DVD for Mr. G. as well as a copy of one of the Captain Underpants book for one of the other teachers to borrow.

So, you know, even though it's gray and I'm stiff from not having gone to kuk sool wan all week (we WILL GO tonight, dang it!), as we say here in Minnesota, "can't complain."

I had a really great time yesterday at the Women of Wyrdsmith's regular Wednesday gathering. naomikritzer talked me off the bridge about the editoral letter I got for Tate's most recent WiP, and Eleanor bought me a mocha because I did the "agenting" work of printing out a story of hers and stuffing it into an envelope (which was subsequently bought by the editor we sent it to.) I even got a bit of revision work done, and am starting to see how I can make the book work the way my editor wants it to (mostly, anyway, and that's all a person can do,) We left a bit early because naomikritzer had an errand to do, and some guy was setting up a keyboard. I was a little nervous about him because he had a giant cross around his neck, kind of ganster for such a skinny white boy with a Jesus beard.

Speaking of Jesus, it just happened that, once again, as we were quietly working on our various writing projects, we overheard two women discussing their personal relationship with Jesus. As I confessed to Eleanor and Naomi, it's a terrible impluse, but something about overhearing that sort of talk always makes me want to start talking loudly about my personal relationship with Satan. In that spirit the three of us protelitized to each other about various non-Chrisitan miracles we'd witnessed, including the miricle of the Great Fish (you'll have to ask Eleanor about this at the next con you see her at. It's awesome,) and my funny experience of corrupting the famous line about how god is "inordinately fond of beetles" yesterday morning to include the Goddess' fondness for creepy-crawlies.

This is a lot how my Wednesday writers' hang-out usually goes. Plus, of course, we gossip wickedly about our fellow Wyrdsmiths and other writers we know or have heard of in SF/F. It's probably the biggest highlight of my week, most times.

Today is my busy day. I'm going off to volunteer -- now at 1:30 pm -- to Mr. G.'s class, and will be staying until the end of the day. I offered that he might need someone to help herd cats with boots and coats and such. Perhaps I will be useless, but I'm determined to do whatever I can.

All right. I guess I should get working!

A gay plot!

Last night I was invited to take part in the local Gaylaxicon reading series, as they had all read (or at least been assigned to read) Resurrection Code. I will be the first to admit I find these kinds of visits especially... awkward.

I had a great time, don't get me wrong. (There were cookies! Pop! A fellow Hogwarts scarf wearing fan!) But, I mean, in my mind, the point of a book club is so that you can have rousing discussions about all the things you loved and HATED about the book you just read. It's a lot more difficult to really get going --especially about all the flaws -- when the person who wrote it is sitting right there... at least, in Minnesota, it is. I'm usually the first person to admit that there are a lot of things that people might not like about my work, but no one wants to bring that stuff up. Conflict bad! (Not for me, of course. Conflict = interesting).

In the future, I should come more prepared. Have a quiz ready to go. Or, trivia (with prizes!) Or, maybe just a few, pointed, serious questions about some of the meatier issues, like, "How badly did I represent the transgender character? Discuss!"

Thus, the conversation didn't stick on Resurrection Code for very long. We ended up talking about TV shows, sharks, and other people's books. As I said, I had a great time, but I left wondering if, you know, I should have been more willing to talk about my own work. Especially since I resisted reading from it too.

Though, as you know, I am one of the guests of honor at Gaylaxicon this year (along with Wendy Pini... I wonder, should I bring along my fan art? I have a ton of ElfQuest fan art from my youth in the basement.) Anyway, Don K. asked me if I would be willing to write something short for their program book/chapbook. I said yes, of course, and I had been thinking of giving them a re-print of something, but now am thinking I should write something NEW, a short story in the AngeLINK universe. What do y'all think?

I need to come up with a plot, though. A gay plot. The plot must be very gay.

Any suggestions?

The Cat is Snoring

The cat beside me on the couch is snoring and gutting something in her sleep. It's very cute in a predator sort of way.

I meanwhile have been there and back again. By there I mean, of course, the Mall of America, where I have purchased much holiday cheer and met Darth Maul. Well, okay, I met a guy who plays Darth Maul professionally. His name tag said "Matt" and he was feeliing especially pumped today because, according to him, he just come back from having auditioned with LucasFilm and was granted license to be an official Darth Maul at bar mitzvas or company picnics or whatever one might hire a Darth Maul for... After congratulaing him, naturally I asked him if he was going to CONvergence next year. I told him that I was going to be one of the guests of honor. Then I gave him my card.

I may have impressed a Darth Maul impersonator. Although in his hightened state of giddiness it wasn't clear.

Also, I learned that for some people of a certain age, there is only one con in town. When referring to CONvergence, he said to me, "I'll see you at con."

The old fan in me thought, "Wow, Minicon, you totally lost the fan war." I would hazard to say that the CONvergence contingent obliterated them, in fact. This kid has only one con, it's so NOT Minicon. I guess that had been the point -- to make Minicon small again. Well. FTW, Minicon.

In unrelated news, Mason requested that I wake him up with a bear war and a silly song this morning. A "bear war" is where we wrestle while growling. The song I sang to him went something like this:

It is time to rise and shine
Or upon your brains zombies will dine
They are lumbering and they are slow
But they will not give up, you know...

Thank you, thank you very much. I'll be here all week! Don't forget to tip your waiter.

I guess I should go eat a little lunch, as we say here in Minnesota, and tackle a few of those revisions.

lyda222 @ 2011-12-12T11:18:00

On Friday I got my editorial letter from Penguin for Tate's newest novel Precinct 13.  Shawn and I were off celebrating "anniversary observed" and so I didn't really see it in my in-box until yesterday.  Today is the first day I'm sitting down and really looking at it.  First of all, it's seventeen pages long.  That's pretty long, though my editor didn't send back an electronically marked-up document, so it's not as line-by-line detailed as some of the others have been (though there is *some* of that.)

My editor is always very reasonable in her expectations, but regardless, I seem need to spend the first day of "revising" actually fuming, and not (re-)writing at all.  I get over it.  I usually get over it in a matter of hours, and then get down to the work of making changes that she will appreciate and I can live with.  More often than not, I come out the other side very grateful for her suggestions.

I suspect that'll happen again... any minute now.

However, at this very second, I just want to whine that "no one understands my GENUIS!!" 

It's something I've noticed a lot about my writing process: it's very manic depressive (or maybe just... weird). For instance, I just finished a short story that I'm submitting to the second Biblical horror anthology that Dybbuk Press is putting out.  I HATED the story at several points during its creation, but, on Friday, when I finished going over my writers' group's comments and revising it, I thought it was the most awesome thing anyone had written eVAR in the history of writing.    If/When it gets rejected, I will, at first, decide that the editor was the biggest fool in the universe not to recognize my genius.  I will immediately send it off to someone else who might appreciate me more.  Then, after it's gone back into the mail, I will suddenly believe that I suck, and that none of my writing has ever been worthy of publication. 

Technically, I skipped a step in here, where I will love the story just before I print it out to handout to my writers' group, and then, the moment they have it in their grubby little hands, think of everything that's wrong with it and why they're going to tell me it's dumber than the dumbest thing ever uttered.  And, then the subsequent roller coaster of emotions at the writers' group itself where I'm insanely happy that they found things to like, and mortified by the things that need improvement.  Weirdly, I don't tend to blame Wyrdsmiths for not recognizing my genuis, and I no longer go through a period, not even a milisecond, of thinking, "Wow, they just don't GET me," probably because my brain pre-filters comments as I'm listening to them, ie, "Oh, that was a good catch, I'll write that down," vs.  "Well, that wasn't my intention, but so-and-so doesn't like horror, so I'll note that impression but not dwell on it other than to make sure that part is toned down in revision." 

I think that just shows that there's a lot of trust built up in Wyrdsmiths over time.  You'd think I'd have that with my editor, but I see Wyrdsmiths every other week.  I talk to my editor usually only when working on a book's revisions with her, once or twice a year.  Also, face-to-face is utlimately different than receiving a seventeen page critique (even though my editor is always very good to mention the things she likes as well.)

I guess I just needed to articulate that, because I have no one here to complain to besides the cats. Who, I should say, are very good listeners, especially Ms. Ball, who has taken to sitting on me a lot this winter.

In other news, our Solstice/Christmas tree is up. We buy a tree every year from the Y's Men because they are conveniently located just across University Avenue from us, and we have a lovely family tradition of frantically dodging University traffic while carrying a ginormous tree. All the lights are on and all the oraments too, including both captains (Kirk and America), several Star Fleet vessels, and a blown glass octopus (among other oddities.)

Doing all that took up most of Sunday. Saturday was more of a lay around day this time, and, of course, Friday (as I said above) Shawn took off work and we hung out together. We ended up shopping, actually. The morning on Friday began with the sock incident, in which it was discovered that Mason had (we initally thought anyway) misplaced one of his black socks. This was a Big Deal because Mason has out grown all but two pair, and Shawn had been carefully tending them. Obviously, what was needed immediately after dropping little boy off at school was an expotition to the North Pole, er, Kohls. Off we went, and then since we were already shopping we kind of got into it and went to Pier One for a bunch of fun pillows for the new chairs (did I mention we have new chairs?) and then to Shawn's hair appointment and then off to DSW. Shopping! I'm not normally a retail therapy sort, but Friday was fun.

I had good company, I suspect.

Okay, so that's everything I know. You?

The exciting life of a writer

I can't believe it's almost 11 am.  Though I did manage to get dinner ready for tonight.  Thursday, if you recall, is my busy day because I have, among other things, volunteering at Mason's school.  Tonight, in addition, we're going to try to get to kuk sool wan because it's a sparring day and Mason has fancy new sparring gear that he likes  to use at every opportunity.  Also, it's Wyrdsmiths, so I'm going to have to book it from KSW to the Black Dog.  Somewhere in there, we need to eat.  So having dinner pre-made is a very, very good idea.

At this very moment, however, I have my butt perched on a radiator and a cat sprawled across my lap.  I'm not sure life gets much better than this.

One of the things I need to do toay, in my copious spare time, is update Tate's website.  I need to get an excerpt for the next Almost book up, and my Penguin publicist told me that they *highly recommend* that I have links to etailers that are not just Amazon.com.  Of course, it's my website so I can do what I want, but I've decided that it's not a bad idea, even if it's a bit of a hassle to track down other sites.  I thought, if nothing else, I'll link to Uncle Hugo's.  I am sure they're asking me to do this because Penguin and Amazon are fighting right now.  Because, frankly, I'm shocked my publicist noticed I have a web site.  They certainly have never offered advice or even commented about it before in my entire career.

I spent my writing time yesterday working on fixing up the Torrent version of Archangel Protocol in order to make it e-book ready.  I'm going to try to spend a little time every day working on that because it's nit-picky and boring, but I'd like to get it available ASAP.  The other books will be much quicker as I actually have electronic copies of those.

I'm still watching Bleach, but I have to say that I'm nervous.  I went looking for pictues of Ichigo to put into my userpic repetore and I noticed that there seems to be many that imply he's been partially taken over by a demon/Hollow.  Who out there has seen more of these?  Is this going to end badly???

We'll I'd better get to it!

Another Blog, Holy Cow!

Yesterday ended up to be a kind of fun day.  Shawn, in her new and improved duties as the Minnesota State Archivist (acting), had to attend one of those business dinners with a bunch of conference atendees, so Mason and I had plans to stay up late and be mischevious.  After school, I took him to Snuffy's for malts.  He has gotten it into his head that whenever he passes an AR (Advanced Reading) test for any book over 6.1 (sixth grade reading level) he deserves a meal out.  I'm not quite sure how this got into his head.  We do tend to bribe him to accomplish things like learning to ride a bike, and we love to celebrate victories in this house of all sizes and varieties, but I don't remember making this specific deal.  Regardless, since Shawn isn't super excited by Snuffy's food choices, it seemed like a good night to have "out on the town" to celebrate all his various reading achievements.

After stuffing ourselves, I was seriously considering skipping kuk sool wan.  I felt a bit like a bloated, beached whale after all that grease and such, but I got a text from my KSW buddy and I decided we should go BECAUSE we were feeling bloated.  So I roused Mason off LEGO Universe, his newest MMORPG obsession, and we got our gear on and went.  I'm glad we did.  Class was it's usual awesomeness, a fact we tend to forget when we're whining about the hassle of getting dressed and going, AND I got a copy of Nicole Lorenz's awesome body-positive coloring book: FAT LADIES IN SPAAAAACE.  I was flipping through it, checking out all the pictures and reading the funny captions and discovered an AngeLINK reference that made my day.  V. cool.

After KSW, Mason settled on the couch next to me with the Kindle version of his favorite Garth Nix series, and I started watching a few more episodes of "Bleach."  Mason couldn't resist and ended up watching three episodes with me.  Now he's totally hooked (and I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing, as I don't know how this ends/goes.)  Luckily, he said I could watch most of the episodes on my own as long as I gave him frequent updates and let him watch any episodes with REALLY BIG hollows.  Something about the Menos Grandes really tripped his trigger.  Perhaps it was the awesome way Ichigo defeated it in the episode, I'm not sure, but Mason was bouncing around telling everyone -- including a very baffled Shawn when we went to pick her up -- about it. 

Our friend Mr. Murphy got an earful too when he stopped by to check out our new chairs.  (Did I meantion we got new chairs?)  It was very amusing because Mason really wanted to tell Murphy the entire plot of "Bleach" and Mr. Murphy really wanted to tell us about the plot of his newest novel.  It was like two writers chomping at the bit to tell their cool stories!  Awesome.

Today is my day to hang out with the women of Wyrdsmiths, and I'm blowing off the furnace guy to do it.  (I'm going to reschedule for a non-Wednesday.)  At any rate, I'm still not sure what I should be writing.  I may just write something for fun... a continuation of the Mouse story I started here?  I don't know.  I should probably also get back to work on correcting the Torrent download I have of Archangel Protocol so that I can get that ready for the lady we're going to pay to turn it into a fancy e-book.

Hey, it's me again...!

Look, two days in a row!  Wow, if I'm not careful this whole blogging thing could become a habit again.

Yesterday, I got an early Christmas package from my pen pal in Seattle.  She's an amazing knitter, and she knitted scarves for my whole family in Hogwarts house colors!  Slytherin for me, Ravenclaw for Shawn, and Gryffindor for Mason.  Perfect!  I put mine on right away, of course, and began explaining to everyone the virtues of being a Slytherin.  I'm not sure, however, that I convinced the six year-old brother of one of Mason's classmates.  He inched away from me when I explain that Slytherin was my house. 

Sigh.

I, of course, instantly reminded him that not all villians come out of my house.  After all, let's not forget that Peter Pettigrew was a Gryffindor! 

At any rate, I wore the scarf again this morning, and, as I was leaving Mason's school I had a startling realization.  Underneath my coat I was wearing my Captain America sweatshirt, and on top, the Slytherin scarf.  What did that make me, I wondered... a dark paladin?  Or an ambitious superhero?



I bought this fabulous sweatshirt from "Think Geek," for myself for my birthday.  Many people are confused by it.  A woman at the grocery store thought I was especially patriotic (I wasn't, I should add, wearing the hood.)  When I explained Cap, I still got a blank look.  Again with the sighing, apparently not everyone knows who Captain America is....

What is the world coming to?

In other news, I'm still not sure what to do with myself since I don't yet have a new book contract.  I consoled myself yesterday by watching some Anime on NetFlix.  I watched the first couple of episodes of Bleach.  I'm... uncertain about continuing.  I like story, sort of, but Japanese demons freak me out.  Some of them look just a bit too much like, I don't know, twisted clowns that they trigger something deep in my psyche.  BUT, I do love the Soul Reapers.  They're cool, so I'll probably suffer through the clownish demons just to watch the awesome swordplay and such.

I'm still listening to and enjoying CINDER, but I find it impossible to listen to it while, say, writing a blog or a letter.  I lose track of words, either in the story or on the page, so I have to save listening to it when I'm doing mindless things like housework or working out. 

The lack of a regular book to read has left me feeling especially out of sorts, as well.  I have something on the Kindle I agreed to review, but the first few pages did not impress me, and, out of desperation the other day, I turned to some fan fic.  Not to disparage fan fic, because I'm actually quite enjoying what I've read of Nessuno so far, but that was meant more a comment on my severe lack of books in the house. "Nessuno" is an alternate history Buffy fan fic that's pretty unlike anything I've ever read before.  It takes place in Rome during the hieght of Papal decedence, and Spike and Angel are mercenaries in service to the Pope... and things go from there.

I guess I'm just busy being a fan, something I don't get to do when I'm so focused on writing all the time.

Forgive me, Father...

... for I have sinned. It's been fourteen days since my last confession... er, post.

I can't really say I've done anything terribly interesting with my time, either -- which I suppose is a fairly big sin.  My folks came to town over the weekend.  On Friday night we were supposed to drive out to their hotel to hang out, have Red Savoy's pizza, and go swimming.  We were already running late because I'd mis-timed getting Mason to the library and back again to Shawn's work in time to take her to the clinic for her B12 shot.  We stopped at home long enough to change, but when we got back in the car and drove about a half block, the engine light came on. 

I'm usually the sort to say, "Aw, whatever," and keep driving, but several years ago (okay, probably more like several decades ago at this point,) when I was driving up to visit Shawn in Grand Rapids, MN where her folks were living at the time, I ran over an ice chunk in the road. It made a god awful sound, but when I pulled over I couldn't see any damage, so I got back on the road.  I drove until my engine light came on, but thought, "ah, whatever," and then.... in the middle of nowhere the car sputtered to a halt and died.  It was minus twenty degrees outside. On Christmas eve.  Luckily, a family stopped and gave me a ride to the next town's diner, where I was able to call (this was before cell phones) and have Shawn's dad come and pick me up.  Turns out I'd totalled the car.  The ice block had smashed the oil pan and as I'd driven the car, it had less and less oil, until suddenly the engine seized.

Ever since then, I don't disregard engine lights, even though I know they're often just one of those lights that come on randomly.

But I did risk the half a block back to the house so that I could wait for the AAA guys in the comfort of my own heated house.  I had them tow the car to our favorite mechanics, Sinclair Grand (on Wheeler).  I called my folks and told them we'd just have to see them on Saturday, and after a few bitter tears of disappointment, we all settled on our brand new chairs.  (As part of Christmas sprucing up, we bought three matching chairs from LL Bean to replace our ratty old couch.)

The evening was made much better by the discovery of a free app for the iPad called "Moxie."  It's a very fun word game, and so we were able to play that and forget about the car for a while.  When the AAA guy came I decided to let him take the car without me since the problem was pretty self-explainatory, and I went back in and made flautas for dinner.  I had accidentally bought the fixings for flautas when I went to Whole Foods earlier in the day, because I spaced on the fact that we'd be having diner with the folks.  (I guess it was actually some kind of psychic impluse, however.)

Saturday morning, we got up early to start bread and cook a squash for squash muffins. My folks came around nine and we all hung out chatting on our fancy new chairs.  (Have I mentioned the chairs?)  I'd wanted to show off kuk sool wan to them, but no one but me was feeling up to it.  So I got out voted.  Shawn made her wild rice soup with turkey leftoves, and we all had a nice lunch before my parents took off to try to race the snow storm on the way back to LaCrosse.

I had them drop me off at the car mechanics on their way out of town, and I found out that the engine light was indeed a fluke, but they wanted to see if they could get the engine to stutter.  (I had noted that it had been doing that just as the light came on.)  So, I left the car there and picked up cat food and some other necessities at the nearby store and walked home.  It's probably a mile, but it's an easy mile, even in the cold and a walk I've made a dozen times.  On the way I listened to an audio book that I got for review called CINDER.   (It's a retelling of Cinderella in a dystopian future China, where Cinder is a cyborg.  It's really fairly awesome [so far] and I'm looking forward to giving it thumbs up.)

The rest of the weekend was low key, even the walk back to get the car.  The mechanic never did find anything wrong with it, so I got to take it home free of charge.  (This is why I love this garage.)  The only other excitment of the weekend was on Saturday evening when Shawn and I watched the third episode of "Case Histories."  I'd been only watching it half-heartedly because the storylines tend to be darker than I usually like, but this particularly one was very good.  (I usually end up not watching with any kind of seriousness, but get caught up by the end.)  Afterwards, Shawn and I were talking about how awesome it was and she decided to look up information about it.  Turns out the main character Jackson Brody is played by none-other-than Jason Isaacs, known to most of us as Lucius Malfoy.  The two could, in many ways, not be more different.  Dude is an awesome actor.

I spent much of the rest of the weekend trying to wrap my head around this discovery.  I think some part of my brain may have exploded. 

Also in the attempt to discover if the Scottish accent Jason Isaacs affects in "Case Histories" was real or not, I discovered that he was born in Liverpool in a very insular Jewish community. 

All of this information just made Lucius Malfoy/Jackson Brody/Jason Isaacs all that more hot.

*sssss boom!*

Turning Older

Friday was my birthday. I turned 44. (One more year to be Captain America. Still have much to do.)

In fact, I'm feeling pretty old today. My asthma has been acting up ever since we've come back from Indiana and I just made an appointment to see my doctor for hire to ask him what the deal could be. I've been wheezing a lot more at night, and feeling like I need to use the inhaler just to stop coughing. But, I'm sure he'll have some ideas.

But, my birthday proper was really very pleasant. We went out to breakfast, my favorite thing to do, at the Day-By-Day Cafe here in St. Paul. There are probably fancier places we could have chosen, but Mason is off on his Intersession vacation, so we picked somewhere that we knew had food he'd like and that would serve us relatively quickly.

We spent the rest of the morning book shopping. I bought things just for me, too. I bought a new (to me) Manga, called "Black Cat." The used bookstore I went to only had issues 7, 10,11,12 and 13, but I got them all. It wasn't too hard to figure out the plot. I read them all this weekend already. I also picked up the Anime TV episodes volumes 1 and 2 for Hikaru no Go, which I introduced Mason to. He LOVES it, and we've been streaming the rest of the episodes (the second only brought us up to "Game 8") on Netflix.

At HPB, I looked through the comics, but didn't find anything that really grabbed me. I ended up coming home with a blank journal, a book on drawing dragons, and a dragon day planner. (I've embraced the dragon, if you can't tell.)

On Saturday, it snowed. I thought Mason had a sparring workshop at KSW so we bundled up and risked life and limb only to discover that we didn't need to be there until Sunday. I felt pretty dumb. But I got a chance to chat a little with Nikki JKN/SJN. That was nice.

Sunday, we went back. I ran into my friend Gary PSBN, which is always strange in the KSW context because he was once my student. (He could very easily say, "When I left you, I was but the student, now I am the master.) At least I wasn't attending the seminar, so I didn't feel conspicous talking to such a high level black belt in my puny yellow belt. He's moved to Indiana, but has been trying to get enough testing in to become a Sa Bum Nim. That will be even weirder, because in my brain there's only one SBN -- our head instructor.

While Mason sparred, I worked a little on my Biblical horror short story. It's been an interesting experiment trying to write short form again. I forget how CAREFUL you have to be, how every word really needs to count. So, I probably ended up taking out as many words as I put in. Still, my goal is to keep it as close to 4,000 words as possible, though I think this one may end up a bit closer to 5,000. It depends on how I try to end it.

I also read a graphic novel that was sent to me for review. I need to find some time today or tomorrow to quick write that up for ODDyssey.. Later today, Shawn has a hair appointment. Maybe I'll get a chance to do that then.

Well, I need to close up so that I can gather up Shawn and head of first to the doctor in Burnsville and then to Edina for her haircut. I'm a total soccer mom today!

Good to Be Here

It's good to be back home after the long haul there and back again to visit grandma in Indiana. Yesterday, however, I did suffer from something akin to jetlag, only without the jet or the time zone changes. Drive exhaustion? I ended up bailing early from my usual Wendesday Women of Wyrdsmiths, thanks in part to a raging headache brought on by too much driving the day before, AND the fact that our coffee shop had scheduled a reading of a local author. The author was fairly dreadful. I mean, maybe not, but I'm not at all a fan of memoirs, and it's nearly impossible to write one's own words while listening to those of another. I stayed long enough to chat with Eleanor and naomikritzer before bailing.

On the drive home I did get a chance to listen to some podcasts. I got through most of the ones I'd chosen from Escape Pod as well as those from PodCastle. I ended up very much enjoying T. L. Morganfield's "Night Bird Soaring." It's actually quite epic, and the ending nearly brought a tear to my eye.

Mur Lafferty's "Boxed In" intregued me, but the ending left me wondering what happened. I should probably listen to it again, because just as it was ending my family started arguing about where we should stop for food, so I may have missed something critical. A caveat: I have a strange love for stories about prostitutes and hustlers.

On PodCastle I pulled down Patricia Russo's "The Landowners No Longer Carry Swords," which was very powerful. It's was one of those stories, like a couple of other that I pulled down, that made wonder about short stories in general. When do you stop telling the tale? What is an acceptable/satisfying ending? Though this story ends, in effect, when things really start hitting the fan, I actually found the ending very satisfying (though I could see how some might not.)

Laura Anne Gilman's "Site Fourteen" (back on Escape Pod) had a totally awesome and unique setting -- deep sea station in the twilight zone, and an ending that struck me initally as AWESOME, but then I wondered about. When I explained it to Shawn, she said it sounded like the ending of a classic horror story. She's probably right, and I'll go with my inital impression.

On Lightspeed, I listened to a bunch that were sort of out of what I might normally think I'd like, but ended up really enjoying. I don't have a lot of tolerance, usually, for tongue in cheek science fiction (mostly because it always ends up sounding to me like a rip off of Douglas Adams), BUT I ended up quite amused by "Transcript of the Interaction Between Astronaut Mike Scudderman and the OnStar Hands-Free A.I. Crash Advisor" by Grady Hendrix. I'm seriously considering attaching a link to this podcast for any students who sign up for my Loft on-line class for the day we talk about science fiction cliches.

Adam-Troy Castro's "Her Husband's Hands" should have been silly, but it was actually one of the most moving stories I listened to on the trip.

Speaking of should have been silly that turned out cool, "How Maartje and Uppinder Terraformed Mars (Marsmen Trad.)" by Lisa Noheallandi Morton ended up reminding me a bit of Eleanor Arnason's Big Mama stories -- something that skates the line between myth and science fiction. Surprisingly good stuff.

I still have a few left on my .mp3 player to listen to and perhaps I'll remember to tune in when I'm doing various chores. I ended up listening to music this morning, however, when I was raking leaves. While we were away our big maple decided to dump all its leaves all over the front. Our nearness to University meant there was also a lot of garbage tangled up in it, so I was disgusted enough to spend almost an hour and a half this morning picking up trash and bagging leaves. I think now I can hold my head up high when we pull up to the house.

Mason is home for Intersession, and we've been pretty lazy. His big discovery on the trip was Garth Nix. He LOVED the "The Keys to the Kingdom" series (the Monday..., Tuesday... ones.)

Oh, and Shawn's Christmas present arrived last night. The Kindle FIRE!!!