Erik Amundsen's Blog, page 77

Panic. I wish I was surprised to see you.

A real barn-burner of a panic attack came to visit about an hour ago, heart racing parasthesia and all that fun stuff.  It seems to have ebbed, so bed attempt #2 is soon.

Submissions Don't Matter

But sales are always good!  "Mote,"  darkpaisley  's plot bunny that she gave to me to write has found a home at Not One of Us. 

I'm always glad when I send work to lesser_celery   that actually, you know, works.  I'm sort of sad that I sat on that story for as long as I did.

So. The Dentist.

Called me to tell me I owe them $600 not $400.  They give no reason for this and the person on the phone was quite defensive, leaving me reassuring her that, no, I was not going to jump down her throat about it.

But I should have.  Damn.

Submissions Don't Matter

One subbed.  Two to go.

It Promised not to Kill me...

The Spider Story said "All I need is a few linking paragraphs and for you to go back and fix the sentences that sounded awesome to you when you still knew what you were trying to communicate." 

What it meant was "You need a full rewrite with 1st to 3rd person narrative switch and it needs to be 2 to 3 times as long as it was to make any damn sense."

Yeah.

Run Blogging

I told entropy13  I had a plan for winter.  And I did.  I did not, however, have a plan for bullshitocalypse, which has come with fury to my patch of New England.  I do not have the equipment, yet, to run on a quarter inch of standing water over a sheet of ice.  I haven't run since Tuesday, and it's starting to frustrate me.  I won't be running today, pretty sure of that. 

Maybe tomorrow?

Arisia!

I went to Arisia this weekend!  I sat on the scary side of the table!  I stayed with the wonderful skogkatt  and Moss in Arlington!   It was a Good Experience, with Many Lessons, and these are the lessons I learned (in no particular order).

1) shadesong  is right about readings.  Next time I read at a con, you will hear about it.  I will put it on Facebook.  I will beg, whine and cajole.  I might even threaten.  I will bake cookies.  No, I take that back.  I will bring rum.  Come to my readings, I will booze you up (assuming you are of boozing-will-not-get-me-arrested age).

2) Do not sign up for multiple related panels.  I signed up for a Worldbuilding/Magic one, a Myth and Folktale one, and a Fairy Tale one and I had a hell of a time telling them apart when I prepared and even got two confused in the email rounds before hand.

3) Be prepared to moderate, just in case.  I didn't have to, but next time, just in case, I will be prepared.  sovay  is a good person to look to  for taking charge of a panel.

4) No matter how close you're staying, no matter how awesome the people (and they were) you're staying with, around 3 in the afternoon on the second or third day, you will still be kicking yourself for not getting a room at the hotel, because all you will want in all the world is a quick nap and a shower.  Also, you will be kicking yourself for body anxieties that don't let you be naked in someone else's shower, because you will want to crawl out of your filthy skin on the way home.

5) Pub food is always a bad idea when you're ravenous.  Sushi is always a good idea.  Period.  Also, I like natto.

6) My name is Norwegian.  I've known this for a long ass time, but some level of that didn't start filtering in until this week, as a consequence of listening to a little Norwegian death metal, researching some folktales on my own and then meeting someone (Daniel Rabuzzi) who did a Lot of Research into them...  So I am becoming more aware of my own heritage and ethnic identity and not seeing myself as default, which is probably a good thing.  Maybe one day, I'll even make peace with the Saxons, but I still think they were jerks, and I don't enjoy their folktale as much as I do the Norwegian ones. 

7) If you're on a panel that does not reference political or social issues, you might have to talk about them anyway.  If it does, you will have to 101 for someone who rejects the premise and wants to derail.  Pretty much accept that and move on.

8) Don't go to view panels about things you know pretty well.  I learned this already, but I don't think I ever mentioned it as a lesson learned.  The panels will never be able to do more than a surface scan, an introduction.  Better to introduce yourself to something you don't know than get frustrated with something you do.

9) Please don't shill your book at a panel.  It's just as annoying to the other panelists as it is to the audience.  My second panel had two panelists trying to move copy and it got a little heated between them and kind of miserable for everyone else.

10) Having someone to go with you to panels as moral support is key.  Thank you, Moss.  Kind of a lot.

11)  Con Suites are way too warm.

12) When you are on the escalator going up, glance not at your destination.  Something might be between you and it that you really do not want to see. 

13) If you have some sort of conflict or something like that, go see the con com as soon as you can to get yourself sorted.  They were really cool about letting me out of a panel I could not attend.

14) Cons wreck your shit.  Take the day after off, at least.

Mondegreens Revealed

Last Friday, I learned that there's a word for those times when you mishear song lyrics and make up your own, mondegreen, and also that trying to get other people to guess yours is really kind of harder than you'd expect going forward (but looking back, just as hard as you would expect).  Anyway, for the curious, these were the ones I put up.


1) When the world can take a stun.
When the working day is done - Cyndi Lauper "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"

2) I'm just a fast ball in the night.
[Hey baby] I'm just about starving tonight - Bruce Springsteen "Dancing in the Dark"

3) Drop your precious scarlet mirror.
Chop your breakfast on a mirror - Metallica "Master of Puppets"

4) We're living in a world of fruit, drinking a scow.
We're living in a world of fools, bringing us down - the BeeGees "How Deep is Your Love?" (correctly identified by ericmvan  )

5) Landsraad, your moment's at hand (yes, I was that big a nerd, so was my dad; this song is the obscure one so a bonus bit from it: "Hellbent, empty as Sven").
Grand slam, your moment's at hand / Hellbent, empty and spent - Dan Fogelburg "Lion's Share" which I only expect people to know if they're related to my dad.

Goblin Fruit!

You're either on it or you never tried it...

While I Kiss this Guy/Dirty Deeds, Thunder Chief/There's a Bathroom on the Right

Likely to be off radar for the weekend at Arisia, but before I leave, a meme, or, I suppose it would be a meme if several other people do or have independently done it, because heaven knows the internets need more of those.

Anyway, I'm going to throw out some lyrics that I thought were from songs, but in fact were not.  Misheard lyrics, or something pieced together in my head, and if you want to play, you can comment with what you think the song is and what the actual lyrics are.  These were all on the radio, with one exception, when I was a kid, and shouldn't be too obscure.

1) When the world can take a stun.

2) I'm just a fast ball in the night.

3) Drop your precious scarlet mirror.

4) We're living in a world of fruit, drinking a scow.

5) Landsraad, your moment's at hand (yes, I was that big a nerd, so was my dad; this song is the obscure one so a bonus bit from it: "Hellbent, empty as Sven").

Had fewer than I thought that weren't the obvious ones.  So feel free to add some, if you like.