Lyda Morehouse's Blog, page 72

In IN

Okay, we survived the trip to Valpariaso, Indiana. It was, as usual, a VERY long drive, however, we entertained ourselves by letting the .mp3 player choose the music. Our only rule: NO SKIPPING.

We have long believed that the device has had its own agenda. Now we're certain. We probably have thirty or forty big band/40s tunes on the thing out of thousands of songs. What did it play? EVERY SINGLE one. No, it wasn't stuck in genre, because ocassionally it would bust out with some opera, zydeco, or Patsy Cline (or Ella Fitzgerald or other jazz era/old-timey country). We also got some classical. One or two rock songs, but the .mp3 player picked very "easy listening" options.

Given how much rock and blues we have in comparison, this is a pretty clear indication that our .mp3 player has become an AI, complete with its own personality. (I'll double-check, but I don't THINK the brand name is a wholly owned subsidiary of SkyNet.)

We have decided to name our .mp3 player "Cap" in honor of Captain America, since it clearly prefers music that Steve Rogers would appreciate.

Beware Hollywood Types

Apparently there's a Hollywood version of "I've got this great idea. I'll give it to you. You can write it, and we'll split the profits 50/50, okay?"

I can't name names and must speak in code, but suffice to say my alter ego got tapped by someone who is a Gogglable actor with this very offer. It's incredibly depressing because I want to believe that my work is worthy of the stage and screen, as it were. Plus any attention from the West Coast always seems like a VERY BIG DEAL. Especially, as I say, when you plug a name into Google and you get hits that are very legit.

But, when I emailed my agent about this, before even seeing the follow-up email, she wisely says: "Beware Hollywood types wanting free options... or to work on a screenplay with you."

Then, the email this morning says, in so many words, "I've got this great idea...."

Nuts.

The only silver lining (alas not silver screen) is that this is the second Hollywood type to come sniffing around my alter ego. I think of this as silver because I'd like to imagine that it means that my books are falling into the hands of people who are within several degrees of someone who might actually make a real offer on an option.

Also, I would do this kind of work if it were the sort of thing that I could reasonably expect payment for, you know? I mean, if this person came back and said, "Here's the deal. I'll pay you x for you to write up y." I would very seriously consider it. I mean, who isn't enchanted by the idea of breaking into Hollywood?

And, universe? I love being asked. Even if my agent says it's foolish to dance and thus I have to say no, I still LOVE being asked. You can keep sending me these people. It makes me feel very flattered.

lyda222 @ 2011-11-08T09:40:00

I'm sitting at a nearby Caribou while my car gets an oil change and a tire-rotation. Of course, I overhear the guy at the coffee bar say into his cell phone: "We need to instill some Christian values into him!"

Why is my knee-jerk reaction: "Oh noz!!!"

I mean, perhaps, for all I know, the guy is a liberation theologist upset that his son/friend/brother/lover doesn't share his world view and wants him to be more Christian in that brown-skinned socialist sort of way. :-)

I suspect my reaction comes from the fact that that particular phrase seems to be one of those "dog whistles" the press always talks about. Christian values is like the Moral Majority, a phrase that has become highly politicized.

Egads, I just heard him say, "We'll you know you're going to die, and you can't take it with you. You've got to figure out how you can afford eternity."

Wow.

At any rate, it's been a long time since I've posted. I should be able to be more consistant now, though. I hope. I finished two new proposals for more books in the cow mutiliation mystery series (Precinct 13.) As I've said, this series will probably never get off the ground because I absolutely adore it.

Speaking of things I love that are doomed, Shawn and I just started watching "Grimm." What an awesome show! It's like something I would write, because in the middle of all this fairy tale action we meet a Big Bad Wolf (a "blutbad") who isn't all that bad. In fact, he's trying to reform, and he's utterly hillarious. (Burn Notice fans will recognize the actor as the guy who played the crazy drug dealer/arms supplier). We're going to try to catch all the episodes because I'm absolutely certain it's not going to survive long. It's too smart with a touch of silly. That's not usually a good combination for a network show.

In other news, we're headed to Indiana again soon to see Mason's grandmother who lives there. I'm not looking forward to the grueling drive, but I am planning on downloading a bunch of podcast science fiction/fantasy stories to listen to on the way down. This is how I keep up on short stories actually, and this time they're doing double duty. I'm going to start deciding which stories to "assign" (it's always volunteer) for my Loft on-line students to listen to/read.

If y'all have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Well, I can't hang out here too long today. I've got to go check to see how they're doing on my car. Then, I'm HOPING that I'll get a chance to keep working on the short story I started, as well as re-keying "12 Traditions" which I'm hoping to sell as a reprint, AND formatting Archangel Protocol so I can send it off to the woman we're going to hire to do an e-book of it.

Life is always hopping at the Rounds/Morehouse place.

Halloween and More

I'm really sorry that I haven't updated here in a while. Coming out from under the book deadline has been particularly difficult this time around for some reason.

I've got a lot to do today. It's my day to volunteer at Mason's school, recycling, fish tank cleaning day (yes, I still have fish,) and in my writing life I've got a zillion things going on as well. I have a new Precinct 13 book proposal in the works that needs revising (and submitting), a short story that wants writing, and I need to prepare for my SF World Building class/workshop at the Loft on Saturday. Plus, there's a number of things the Loft folks want for advertising for the upcoming on-line class I'll be running in February.

BUT, I would be extremely neglectful if I didn't post a few Halloween pictures! Here's Mason in his monster/devil costume, looking very threatening:

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Since I always tag along on his adventures, I threw together a Harry Potter costume:

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I have a Slytherin patch on my robe, but could only find a tie in Ravenclaw colors, so I told everyone I was an "evil genius." :-)

As usual we went all out on decorations and pumpkins. Here's some of what we did:

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So that was our Halloween. Now I've mostly cleaned up the yard, but the porch is still very decorated. Shawn is off to a business trip to Washington, D.C. today, which means I may either be super inspired to get things done around the house or wallow in lonliness. :-)

Happy Halloween/Samhain

Yesterday was extremely busy around the Morehouse/Rounds household. We had a lot to do to finish getting ready for Halloween. I baked several batches of Halloween-themed sugar cookies, and Mason helped me decorate them (which means we have some very INTERESTINGLY colored bats and ghosties.) Then, we carved pumpkins. We got four this year, and they were all HUGE. Mason designed all the faces, though I did most of the dirty work of cleaning and cutting. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a few good pictures tonight. They're all pretty scary. Some years we have one cute one, but not this year!

The last thing on our pre-Halloween agenda (different, I should say, from our gay agenda,) was to finish decorating the front porch. We have lights! And cobwebs! And a mummified monster in the corner rocking chair. The only thing I have left to do is run an extention cord to the front from the back of the house so we can light up our eyeball lights that lead up the front steps.

Should be pretty awesome.

Mason, this year, is going as... a monster. This seems to happen to him every year. He starts the year off with grand plans to be a rancor from Star Wars or some complicated character from Pokemon, but, while shopping, he inevitably comes across some mask or other that he adores and begs us to buy it for him. This year, it's a kind of devil monster. The nice things about his costuming choice is that we can adjust according to weather. If it's chilly tonight, we'll get him bundled up first and put the black robe and cape over his jacket. The mask acts as a bonus hat.

Viola, ready for Halloween in Minnesota.

We will probably hit whatever houses in the neighborhood have lights on (last year that was almost none, which explains our lack of traffic, despite the welcoming lights and decorations,) After that, we'll head over to Sargent Avenue in St. Paul to do our serious trick-or-treating. If you've never been (and, are, of course, local to the Twin Cities area,) you should check out Sargent Avenue on Halloween. One block east of Cretin on Sargent, they close off the street and have a full-on Halloween bash, complete with Morris dancers. Almost every house on either side of the block participates, and the decorations are AMAZING.

Mason and I got our pictures taken in 2007 by the Star Tribune. Mason was wrapped up as a mummy, 4 years old, and utterly precious. (I just went looking to see if the article/picture was still available in the archives, and it is, but you have to get a subscription to Highbeam, which it won't let me do without parting with my credit card information... so, alas, I can't repost here.)

So... what are your plans?

Feeling Behind

Okay, so I finally finished (like, REALLY, and for true, as in sent to my publisher) PRECINCT 13 yesterday at about 12:30 pm. Now, I'm coming out of the haze of frantic writing/revising to discover all the things I ignored while I was trying to make my deadline not be quite so late.

I offered to read a bit of the new novel for Anton Strout's Halloween podcast, but when I came up for air over the weekend, he told me I'd missed my opportunity. Hopefully, there will be others. I hate when that happens, especially since, if I'd had a better sense of when he wanted it, it only would have taken a minute or so to get done. Nuts.

This morning I was looking through my files to try to figure out what I needed to read for Wyrdsmiths on Thursday and I came across an entry that I (in my guise as Tate) was supposed to have read by October 15 for a romance writing contest in honor of the late L.A. Banks. Luckily, with this one, I wasn't the only author behind schedule. When I frantically emailed the organizer she told me that I could go ahead and send in my results as she was just compling a note to remind the other recalcitrant authors. Whoo! So, I got that done right away.

But, having realized that I missed and nearly missed these two things, I've been going through all my emails and trying to figure out a comprehensive "to-do" list of all the things I was working on or planning to do before the computer crash, etc.

One of the things on that list is to try to write a story for the next Biblical Horror Anthology by Tim Lieder. I'd started one before the computer crash, and all couple thousand words of that is lost. However, I still have my notes, so I'm going to reboot that project today.

I need to read the Wyrdsmiths submissions.

What else? I'm not sure. Hopefully, I won't discover something huge that I was supposed to have done weeks ago....

Gah. The feeling of discovering these projects ws a little like the one I get when I have that reoccuring nightmare in which I discover I've arrived at a convention on a Saturday (or Sunday) and I've missed several panels I was supposed to be on already. Usually, the rest of the dream involves me trying to find registration to get my schedule and it's in some obscure, hidden, or dangerous (no railings on a glass catwalk kind of thing) part of the hotel.

Okay, so...

My life is just about ready to return to normal. I stayed up late last night adding a few more words and polish and such to PRECINCT 13. This morning I have printed out a copy for Shawn to read and proof. Hopefully, she will have that done over the weekend, and I can turn it into Peguin on Monday or Tuesday of next week. Then, the only really important writing work I need to do is get a proposal together for the next set of books.

Because... I REALLY hope I get to write more in this universe. It's WAY too awesome.

Today, when it warms up, which it is supposed to, Mason and I are going to take the classroom butterflies to Como Park to release them. We were entrusted with the class pets over this teacher-conference break, and, it's been traumatic and miraculous. We had set up the butterfly cage in Mason's room to start with. There were several chysalis that had not hatched ina plastic container that I put on top of the cage, thinking (foolishly) that this would keep the cats away from it. Well, we came home Wednesday afternoon to a disaster. The container was on the floor as were several chysalises and... there were tears. I thought for sure most of the pupa were dead. I scooped them up anyway and returned them to their container. I managed to find three butterflies that had managed to hatch before the disaster in Mason's room. I put them in the cage (everyone who had already hatched was fine.) Over the next couple of days... the crippled butterfly have hatched. It's both sad (because in some cases their wings are quite damaged,) but also miraculous. I don't think any of them died, per se. I think about three will end up as permanent classroom pets, however. Still. I consider this amazing. We thought all was lost.

Mason is also going to continue practice bike riding at Como. We've found a pedestrian path that's about his speed (oddly the bike path is too steep, too full of scary whizzing bikes, and too hilly for a beginner like Mason.) Luckily, Mason is fairly adept at going around pedestrians, and they seem to tolerate a slow-moving beginner without being too mad at us for taking up their lane.

I have missed kuk sool wan for two weeks. My body is sore and old-feeling. I'm really looking fowarded to getting back to it, honestly. Starting Saturday... or perhaps Monday, depending on how the weekend shakes out.

I think that's all the news that's fit to print.

Ding, Dong the Book is Done!

Last night, I typed my two favorite words in the English language: "The END." Of course, at this stage, the book is really not done in the least. My MVBR (most valuable beta reader), naomikritzer , has yet to read and comment on all the stuff I skimmed over, my embarassingly stupid misspellings, the plot holes, and the bits I blatently left out. Naomi is also wicked awesome at uncovering emotional themes that I didn't entirely realize I had going and giving me ways to bring them more to the surface. So, when she's done, I'll have some work to do.

BUT I can haz a working draft. A book what has a beginning, middle and end. For me, the hardest part is over, as I'm one of those writers who really prefers revision to writing (in some ways. It's at least a place I feel a lot less PRESSURE.)

To be fair to this WiP, however,I actually really enjoyed putting words to the page this time around, thanks, in large part, to my mother's advice to simply "embrace the cheese."

I will have to say, however, that I am never again naming any project with a title that includes the number 13. This book has been totally cursed. This morning, I got frantic email from Naomi telling me that the version I emailed her seemed to end in the middle of a scene. I went back to my computer and it looked like I didn't save all the words I'd written that took the story from that scene to "The END." I started to FREAK. Then, I realized that through some really weird accident, the final version of the book got renamed (of all things) "Maybe." (Explain THAT one, Dr. Freud.)

This was not the first computer weirdness I've had since starting the book. I'm seriously looking on-line for an "uninstal gremlins" button for the Toshiba.

Anyway, that's a big YAY. Shawn looked at me this morning and asked, "So what are you going to do with all your free time?"

For one, I need to start writing up ideas for more book proposals. I also have a short story percoloating in the back of my mind that I'd like to get down on paper for an anthology I was considering submitting to.

So... write, I guess. :-)

Final Push

My WiP is almost done. I didn't quite get to the end over the weekend, but the end is in sight. I had planned to get a copy to my most valued beta reader today, and the plan still stands... just probably the END of today.

I just need to get one thing off my chest before I get started on my final push. My Marvel buddy, Sean M. Murphy, came over this weekend and the three of us watched "X-Men: First Class." (We set Mason up in the other room with streaming "Mythbusters" since we weren't sure how kid safe the movie was. I'm glad we did since the f-word got dropped, albeit in the most awesome cameo EVER.)

A lot of people have already noted how the women and people of color totally get short-changed in this film, so I won't comment on it. It is especially noticable, however, since they messed around with canon and had what I like to call "the time of the great gathering" in the 60s (in the comics this was the mid-80s when we saw a lot of new mutants being introduced to the team, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Storm....) All that just made me realize that the closer Hollywood sticks to canon, the better the superhero films are. Iron Man was almost verbatum his origin story, only with updates of bringing him into Afganistan/Iran instead of Vietnam, and that movie is AWESOME. They could hardly have messed with canon more in this movie, and... well, it showed.

The thing I really wanted to say that I don't think anyone talked about (that I remember) is the hypocracy of Charles Xavier.


Next, Magneto goes to face his old torturer, Shaw. Magneto is getting his ass kicked hard, because Shaw as absorbed the power of a nuclear reactor. Shaw knows about Xavier's powers and has the room he's in "psi-proofed." As Magneto uses his body to wreck the walls, Charles is able to get his mind through. Magneto gets the helmet off Shaw and Charles seizes control of Shaw's body, freezing him. Magneto puts on the psi-proof helmet and very slowly, pushes a Nazi coin (very emotionally symbolic) through Shaw's brain. Cut to Charles screaming, "Noooo!"

But does Charles ever let Shaw go so he can defend himself? Shaw's powers could easily absorb the force of the coin coming towards him. If Charles was desperate for Magneto not to commit murder, he probably shouldn't have HELPED HIM.

Because then, when the Soviets and the US get legitimate orders to blow up the beach that the mutants have landed on, Magneto stops the missles in mid-air and is going to turn them on the ships that sent them. Charles freaks out and starts fighting Magneto. The rockets all blow up in mid-air.

So, let's do a body count of innocents. Magneto, 0 to 3 (zero, if you consider the evil crap Shaw was up to and the previous two Nazis that he takes out from their hideout in Argentina.) Professor X, hundreds (or perhaps more, since I have no idea the normal compliment of a Russian naval ship in the 1960s. Including the poor guy who just signed up to be the cook....)

No wonder Magneto has always been my more favorite character. All his motivations for evil make sense. He wants to avenge Jewish deaths and kill his torturer. These are bad things because he wants to do them vigilante-style and not bring people to justice, but they're also 100% UNDERSTANDABLE.

Xavier tells Magneto he's a villian for WANTING (not succeeding, like he did,) to destroy innocent lives. Magneto tells him that soldiers following orders is no excuse. Too many Jews died at the hands of those who said they were just following orders. What would have made the movie ultimately more cool would have been if Magneto turned and looked his friend in the eye and said, "I'm only trying to do what you have already done. Would you prefer to control their minds and have them blow themselves up? Or, perhaps, you can hold them still while I plunge the knife in their hearts. Does that make YOUR hands more clean of blood than mine???"

I stand with Magneto, who will f**k you up to your face, not behind your back..
Speaking of that, WTF. Xavier so does not seem to see the sarcasm when Magento looks at his massive mansion and says, "Poor Charles, how did you ever survive?" (implied: while I scrapped along in a ghetto and concentration camp.) Dude. Magneto is 99%. That blows my mind.

Just a Quick Word

I just want to say a quick "hello" before going back to being head down over the keyboard. I'm trying to finish a fist draft of PRECINCT 13 this week so I can get it to beta readers and off to the publisher before we get into the "omg, so OVERDUE" part of the deadline missage.

I'm at a coffee shop this morning, however, because I have to head back up the hill to collect Shawn. She's got a doctor's appointment to get a vitamin B12 shot. This is suppose to be part of the cure for theright-side numbness that she had that sent us to the hospital all those months ago. Our big plan is, if the medicine doesn't make her sick, to have a lunch date afterwards.

We had a busy/not-busy weekend. We didn't have a lot on officially, but we did a lot of yardwork and we got the boxes of Halloween decorations out of the attic and STARTED putting those out/up. Halloween is one of our favorites, and I like to get creative. We built a garbage bag, leaf-stuffed spider for the front yard, and we started a scarecrow "victim" for her web. We're waiting to put up all the cobwebs until we get a new front door.

We've had a broken screen door for years. Part of the reason we haven't replaced it until now is that part of the issue is the when the spring broke, it took out part of the frame. I'm only SO handy and re-building door frames is out of my pay grade. But, we're going to see if Shawn's brother has the skill set. If nothing else, we're going to purchase the new door. We have a handyman on-call if we end up needing to pay someone.

Mason is taking swimming lessons again. He loves swimming, so it's a pleasant way to spend an hour or so on Saturday morning. I've been usuing the time to plot the novel and/or write to my pen pals (though I forgot to address the envelope this morning!)

That's about all the news fit to print. I had a great time on Friday going to the Occupy Minnesota demonstration at the "people's plaza" (formerly the government plaza) with Eleanor. We mostly did what Minnesotans do best -- stood around drinking coffee and chatting amiably. There was a little reading of declarations, but, generally, it was nice to be part of the movement in whatever small way I could. Because a nice woman gave me a sign that her daughter had made (the organize little fish eating the big one), a lot of people took pictures of my sign and I got interviewed by someone doing a "project" who wanted to know why I was there and what I hoped to get out of it. I said that what I'd like to see is more attention given to the middle class's' struggle by the media and politicians, and later Eleanor told me she was glad I answered that because she would have said, "REVOLUTION!"

I've also been enjoying the picture that's been going around Facebook of "Octopi Wall Street" because the day that Eleanor and I were there it was Cephlapod Appreciation Day.