Lyda Morehouse's Blog, page 78

Electronic Records Fail!

I need to get to work on my revisions, but first I have to rant about my own stupidity. I was looking at fiction markets for a friend, and I noticed that there were a few that will take reprints and I started thinking, "What do I have that I could consider sending in?" My mind went back to my very first published science fiction story, "Twelve Traditions" which appeared in the May issue of SF AGE (now defunct.) I have about two zillion paper copies of the magazine because, as I mentioned, it was my first EVA professionally published short story (technically I'd sold "Irish Dreams" to Dreams of Decadance, but at the time that mag was considered semi-pro.)

Do I have an electronic copy of that story anywhere?

Oh, sure, one of those little square disk-thingies probably has a version of it, but do I have one on any media I can ACTUALLY READ!!!????

No.

The ironic part of this? I should know better. My partner can laugh right into my face when she reads this. Shawn, if you don't know, is an electronic records specalist (among her many duties at the Minnesota Historical Society) and I've listened to her practice her talks about migration and all the things you need to do in order to keep your files readable in the future.

I should also note that my made-of-awesome archivist partner DOES, in point of fact, have CDs which we can still read on our tower computer that have back-ups of all my writing files from as far back as September 2001. Given that the short story I'm looking for was published in 1999, I had hope that I would have kept an electronic copy of it... but no. So all the blame falls squarely on my shoulder. In fact, I can very easily see me saying to myself, "Well, this is in print now. Why would I ever need another copy of it?"

I have a partial of it on my website, but not the whole thing. I think one of my weekend projects after I finish my revisions and do some more work on the NEW short story I've been plotting, is to sit down with the magazine and re-key the damn thing.

*sigh*

Skype

I may have fixed Skype. I need to test it on a real person, however, so I'll wait and see when my dad comes online again today. Of course, I mostly ignored all the wonderful advice everyone gave, and, instead, followed their on-line help instructions. Weirdly, it did seem as though my microphone may have been turned way down (in the control board of my laptop, not, as I had been looking on Skype), or, possibly even completely muted. This does NOT explain why this happened on Shawn's computer, unless somehow her setting got changed, too. So, I may still have to do all the things you folks suggested so I've saved them all in my inbox.

I'll let you all know how it goes.

In the meantime, I've nearly finished my revisions for Ana #3. I just have a bit more to do today, though, of course, what remains are actually the critical final scenes. I probably could have pushed through them last night, but I was tired after a full kuk sul wan class AND Mason's honest to goodness class _assignment_ to go outside and play for at least 20 minutes. We played bat and ball for twice as long as was required, though that was interrupted by meeting our across-the-alley neighbor Ken. He seems nice, though it's aways awkward to meet someone for the first time when they're literally half-naked. He's a middle aged white guy with a paunch who was gardening shirtless. :-)

At any rate, I should probably get to it, though, with this weather (cool and breezy) all I really want to do is curl up next to a warm kitty and nap. Ah, the life of writer!

Gryffindor, You Haunt Me

I love this summer so far. I managed to miss the 103 degree day, and have been shamelessly enjoying the cool breeze which, for me at least, makes for a good night's sleep. Last night, I opened the window and snuggled under a comforter. It was awesome. Of course, I also dreamed I was Ron Weasley, so that might have contributed to the joy.

I think, btw, that my subconscious is trying to tell me to stop ignoring the truth: I'm probably a Gryffindor, deep in my heart. I'll deny it, you know. Slytherin House needs someone like me. Someone gregarious and likable, heroic, yet deeply ambitious and a little dark. As my astrological chart says of my Mercury in Scorpio, "Your mind is deep, but rarely charitable."

Anyway, today is the day that, hopefully, I finish the revisions on Ana #3 (aka ALMOST EVERYTHING). Once I got over my inital reaction of, "Gah! My editor hates me! She's gutted the book!" (which, I should try to remember, happens to me every time, it's sort of like how I feel every time I get a rejection for a short story,) I discovered that the revisions aren't nearly as major as I feared. Luckily, my family was a bunch of duds last night and went to bed at 8:30 pm, which left me several hours to plow through pages. I got to about 175 or so, which is half way or nearly so. There is going to be more to do the closer I get to "THE END," but I'm hopeful the next several chapters will be as smooth saling as the previous ones.

Speaking of short stories, I've been continuing my podcast kick. I've listened to almost everything Lightspeed currently has on offer that seemed even remotely up my alley, and have moved into Fantasy (though I really prefer SF) as well, as checking out what's on offer over at PodCastle and EscapePod. I think I could listen a story a day for a thousand years, which is kind of nice. That's a bit of an exaggeration, of course, but I *am* seriously pleased how much stuff seems to be out there. Next time you see me at a convention, I'll be full of it. I mean I'll be full of knowledge of the short story field... yeah, that's it. ;-)

Speaking of science fiction, I just tried to Skype my dad. Any of you technically savvy people out there know why it is that my computer isn't transmitting sound?? I can see and hear my dad just great. He can see me, but not hear me. What's really, REALLY weird is that it doesn't seem to matter which computer I use. We have Skype set up on my computer and Shawn's and neither one wants to work, despite the fact that we've used it successfully in the past (I even talked to a friend who is in Korea!) I wonder if it isn't our 4G network. We've had to move it around to try to get a good signal, and maybe it no longer has the juice to connect us... anyway, if any of you folks know what might be up, I'd love a tutorial. It's so much fun to see my dad when I talk. It solves a problem I've always had with the phone, which is I'm not much of a chatter when I don't get visual cues.

Anyway, I should get back to work. I really want to finish up the revisions, because I've been kicking around a short story idea in my head. I've told myself, however, that I can't work on the short story unless I do some novel work first.

Home and a Sweater

Now I'm freezing. WTF, Minnesota! Is this the welcome home I get?

Actually, it's perfect. Thank you. I'd much rather have cold than hot.

I'm starting _official_ revisions for ALMOST EVERYTHING (aka Ana #3) today. Official in this context means in accordance with the editorial letter sent by Penguin. Along with a letter I get an electronic copy of my manuscript with my editor's comments sprinkled throughout. This is a nice chance from the editorial letters back "in the day" when I got an eleven (or longer) page email with things like, "on page 127, in the sentence that begins 'blah, blah...' please add more information about your economic system" or whatever. I like the new system because there's a lot less hunting and pecking AND my editor will spontaneously also add a comment that says, "Ooh, love this!" or "Great line!" which I almost never saw before because of the effort it took to single those out.

This time I'm struggling a bit because a point I wanted to make about marriage isn't working for my editor. I had written a betrothal between two guy vampires that ends in a very cold, politically arranged marriage. This isn't a gay marriage, because these guys barely know each other. Love isn't a factor, as, I had wanted it pointed out, it rarely was before the modern era. The marriage in my novel was depicted very much as an exchange of property between two kings. Or rather, more accurately, the offer of a military captain's "hand in marriage" in exchange for a peace treaty. The sort of thing that, you know, happened all the time in the past (and probably still happens all around the world today), except with a gender blindness in this case because there's no need for heirs as the two parties are immortal vampires.

I think the problem is that this is a very ALIEN concept to modern readers. It also is really, really hard for romantic readers to even imagine the hero (who has been a love interest for our heroine) agreeing to a loveless union of any sort, even though I tried throughout the manuscript to hammer on his overactive sense of duty and loyal commitment to his king and kingdom.

So may end up calling their arrangement something other than marriage. Of course, this is going to retrospectively shed some interesting light on the situation Ana thought she was in with the guy _she_ was previously betrothed to (since a futher entanglement is, of course, that this is book #3 and I can hardly go back and search and replace the word "betrothed" in books that have already come out.) It may be kind of interesting to write that scene where she discovers that "betrothal" means something else entirely to vampires and it wasn't nearly as romantic as she thought. Although, she became betrothed under unusual circumstances and I could probably write in a retrofit to explain why her's *is* that romantic and why this other one is not.

It's messy to say the least, and it kind of bums me out because I kind of enjoyed the simplicity of history -- that is to say, I liked the challenge I posed to modern readers having to deal with this cold, ugly marriage that is at the root of what marriage STILL is -- exchange of property and contractual obligations.

Ah well. That was probably too complicated for a teen novel anyway. (WINKING! Yes, I read the WSJ article and I totally agree with Jackie in this matter.)

Of course, it may just be that I didn't make my point clear enough, which is what my editor is LIKELY complaining about more than anything.

In a few minutes, I need to save my progress and get my haircut. It's gotten incredibly shaggy.

The Long Drive Home

I hear we're missing HOT weather in Minneapolis/St. Paul. This is good. Grandma has air-conditioning, we don't. The kitties are _probably_ smart enough to hide in the basement.

Tomorrow, we begin the long drive home. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it. I'm gathering up a few more podcasts to listen to. If nothing else, I'll have them for company once I'm back at home and doing the dishes and whatnot.

Now if only I could get motivated about my own witing. It's kind of amusing, as I've come to the Blackbird Coffee shop in downtown ValPo in order to use their much faster WiFi. At the table in front of me are two writers critiquing each other very earnestly. It's like a walking advertising for the life that I love. But I've been feeling really undermotivated about my own work. I have three things I NEED to be doing too. I just received my editoial letter for Ana #3 (which is going to require some work), there's the book that's due in August, AND I still have an idea percolating for a short story.

But I just got a call from Shawn. I need to head back to grandma's with some squirt guns and popsicles.

In IN

We are in Indiana (ValParasio to be specific) until Wednesday visiting Mason's grandma. In preparation for the long drive I downloaded a few podcasts into my .mp3 player. I’ve decided I really like listening to science fiction stories, because I can do it while otherwise engaged – driving or doing the dishes or cleaning the fish tanks -- and that this may be a way for me to finally feel “well read.” I mean, I got to conventions and listen to people talk about other authors. I feel like such a dope because I’ve heard all these names, but have never read much of my colleagues’ work. Now, at least, I can be familiar with some of their work.

So, for instance, I listened to some of what is available over at Lightspeed. I found a bunch that I liked that I will recommend to you.

“Long Enough, Just so Long,” Cat Rambo

A classic story of misfits and a retired sexbot. It's a weird thing of mine, but I like any story with a thief, a junkie, or a gigalo. This one is particularly interesting because the main character's BFF has Aspergers.

“Standard Loneliness Package,” Charles Yu

He's hot right now because his novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe is kind of the "it" book right now. I ended up enjoying this story of outsourcing pain and suffering, even though it's more of a metaphor than 100% believable/possible future.

“The Observer” Kristine Katherine Rusch

A dark vingnette of the life of an altered soldier.

“Breakaway Backdown” James Patrick Kelly

I've been mad at James Patrick Kelly since his story "10^16 to 1" won the Hugo the year the Eleanor should have gotten it for "Stellar Harvest." However, this story nearly redeemed him for me, as I found the voice (particularly as in audio format, I don't know it would "read") very engaging.

And Clarkesworld (One thing I did NOT like about the Clarkesworld podcast is the fact that the editor comes back at the end of the story and talks about it. I like how Lightspeed just leaves you to your own thoughts/feelings at the end.): 

 “The Book of the Phoenix” by Nnedi Okofafor

This is a very powerful story about human experimentation gone wrong and the power of one woman to change the world. Of course, Nnedi was recently the GoH of WisCON, but I'd never read/heard anything of hers before this. I recommend this 100%.

“Matchmaker” by Erin M. Hartshorn

Not as powerful as Nnedi's but this has some strange similarities in theme.

I have to run off to the Chinese buffet for lunch, but perhaps I'll write more about this later.

Memories of Joel Rosenburg

I just found out via pegkerr that Minnesota writer, Joel Rosenburg has died.

I was never a fan of Joel's, though I shared a signing at Uncles with him once, and, of course, knew him tangentally through Minnesota fandom. We didn't share political views in the least, and, in point of fact, I used to love to tell the story of the time I was fairly certain Joel was going to shoot me (he was known for being a big proponent of "conceal and carry") on a panel about science fiction and 9/11 when I started to talk about my take on Israel. God Herself intervened on my behalf, however, when Joel got a phone call and was forced to leave the panel. I liked to say that I was "saved by the bell."

All that aside, I hope that you rest in peace, Joel Rosenburg. Given everything that's been going on with my family, I feel especially keenly for Joel's family and survivors. At Joel's web site, I read the entire story and have to say I was quite haunted by that phrase "multiple organ failure," because that's been part of what my own father is currently recovering from.

Unlikely Sources

I'm having one of those days when I just want to eat cookies and spend all day surfing sites like this one.

Instead, I have a ton of stuff on my "to do" list. I did get a couple of things ta-done. I went to PetCo this morning and invested in some stuff recommended by our vet to help our cat, Inky, overcome his recent litter box issues. He's a young(ish) cat, and the doctor tested for infections, etc. And not finding anything conclusive -- there was a bit of blood in the urine, but that could have been from the procedure -- she suggested a couple of medical options (a one time asprin for any possible inflammation and some cosquine which, in addition to being good for old cat joints, apparently helps rebuild the bladder's lining) as well as the usual things like the Felaway aromatherapy, but also some new, softer litter and a "bubbler." Apparently one issue that Inky most certainly has is concentrated urine. She really wants him to drink more, and since he loves running faucets, I found a electric water fountain on sale. He went right to it the instant it was plugged in and running, so that's a hit. He also made a bee-line for the new litter, so apparently softer IS his preferrence.

Fingers crossed that this will be a solution.

Otherwise, if he continues to have problems, the doc suggested kitty prozac, which seems a bit drastic, don't you think? Though if the other option is putting him up for adoption, no, not so much.

Also, we are hiring Friendly Face Pet Services to watch over the cats while we are off to Indiana to visit Grandma Rounds in Indiana. So Katherine, the owner, stopped by the place and I introduced her to all the various pets (including the fish and gerbils), and showed her all the sneaky places we stash cat food, cat medicine, paper towel tubes for the gerbils, etc.

But I need to take off in a little bit to take Shawn to the doctor and then I'm off to "folder" again at Mason's school. At some point, I need to change the fish tanks so we are ready to leave them behind in Katherine's capable hands. The car, too, is in desperate need of an oil change, especially after all this driving back and forth to LaCrosse.

Speaking of LaCrosse, my father continues to improve. I've been checking in every day and it sounds like they're working him quite hard with the physical therapy, which is good. No time for lazing about! I told him that once the edema weight comes off, he's going to be like the character in Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron and FLY!

As an aside - The cool part of the above story is that my dad actually introduced me to that story when he gave me a copy of the Junior Great Books. In that same collection was Ray Bradbury's "The Veldt." I feel like there was a lot of other science ficiton in that sampler too, but those two stories really stuck in my head, regardless.

I may still have my original copy of that in the basement. I should dig it out and see if it's something Mason might some time.

Blinded by Pure Awesome

As y'all know, I couldn't go to WisCON this year, but I got to hear all about it starting last night when seanmmurphy stopped by to tell me all about the Wyrdsmiths' party and the various panels he was on. Then, this morning, I went almost directly over to naomikritzer 's house to "debreif" about everything until sometime after lunch.

It was the next best thing to being there.

Tomorrow I get to hang out with Eleanor and get her take.

I love my friends.

Oh, and my dad continues to improve -- slow and steady. He still has a lot of edema caused, in his case, by earlier problems with plasma protein. The good news is that the swelling is going down on its own, if incrementally. He's going to get to talk to a doctor tomorrow who will probably proscribe medication that will help reduce it, plus continued physical therapy (and general recovery.)

What's been weirdly fun about my father's illness is that we've had this wonderful time to reconnect on a very deep level. We've always been a fairly close family, but, of course, I usually come to visit with Mason and Shawn. A lot of my folk's energy is focused on hanging out with the grandkid, so we really haven't had long, extended periods in which to hang out. I've found out/remembered how cool my dad is/has always been. I realized this time, too, that I really do share his eccelctic interest in nearly everything. My dad talks very disparagingly about times in which he's been too snooty to recognize the value in somethings, but I have to say that I don't see very much of that. He's one of those people who can get excited about almost any subject, which goes a long way to explaining my rather BROAD taste in "intellectual" persuits. (I put that in quotes because of the usual connotation of that word, which is, well, those snooty things, and what I really mean to imply is a general interest in ideas of all kinds regardless of where they originate.)

Plus, I got some very good one-on-one time with my mom, too. We had some really good, deeply personal discussion *and* I got to introduce her to the AWESOME that is "Kung Fu Panda." So, despite all the heartache and worry, it was actually sort of... well, fun... to get to be with my folks this weekend, DESPITE the circumstances.

Hopefully, come July when I head back there, we can have all the same without all the worry!

Submit!

I not only submitted a short story for a friend of mine (for whom I act as a sort-of-not-for-real short story agent,) BUT I also sent a story of my own off to the MinnSpec Anthology contest for Northern Lights II.

I was VERY submissive today.

Do I get a cookie?

The only other thing I have to report, really, is that naomikritzer loaned me her copy of GIVE US A KING! by Everett Fox. It's a translation of the books of Samuel (I and II) in a way that is meant to convey what early listeners to the oral tradition of the Bible might have heard. There's a lot of attention given to the sound of words, puns, repetition and rhymes. It's actually pretty interesting so far, though I have to report an unintentional giggle when the "Isrealites were smitten in the field..." because I imagined a bunch of dudes suddenly smitten with one another! I suppose this is why most translators use "smited," which may be less correct but at least makes me think of devestation instead of smooching.

:-)

Otherwise, I am off to LaCrosse tonight to hang out with my dad as he continues his convelescence. I expect full WisCON reports from all y'all since I can't be there myself!