Kelly McCullough's Blog, page 36

Friday Cat? Blogging

Dark and brooding cat is dark and brooding.
Also, daisies!



Ooh, craft project! I'll help.



Did you say down?



He said down!



Jordan sits on—oops, that's not Jordan



That's Jordan, surrounded by food. What a surprise.



Cuteness incarnate.



Come closer my pretty, don't be afraid.
I'm only going to eat your soul.



Coconut behind bars.
When I get out of here, you're going down, man!



Ribi…ah, er that is, I mean meowbit.

Tasks

I thought we needed a new post. So here is one about writing, which is from my blog and facebook, where I do most of my posting these days.

I am spending the day doing various kinds of house and writing work and giving myself breaks to go on facebook or blog.

Breakfast was the usual: coffee, toast and English marmalade. The radio is on to MPR. Patrick is about to go out. I plan to do a load of wash and actually write. I was reading a Neil Gaiman essay on Terry Pratchett. Back when he had a day job, Pratchett would write 400 words every night. One night he came to the end of a novel after 300 words. So he put a new piece of paper in the typewriter (typewriter?) and began a new novel. I wonder if I could do that?

I managed 800 words, though I had a rough draft of most of it. I've gone back to my old habit, which was doing the first draft long hand in a notebook. The advantage is, I don't have to carry a computer everywhere. Even a netbook is heavier than a notebook. And I may think better in long hand, especially when I use a fountain pen with colored ink. My two options right now are purple and turquoise. Then, when I input what I've written, I do a lot of revising. Not a bad technique. So my 800 words are inputting + rewriting.

And I have the great pleasure of buying nice pens and notebooks and using them, and then the even greater pleasure of ripping pages out of my notebook after I input them. There is something so satisfying about this. Words into the garbage!

Friday Cat Blogging Super Bonus Pack

A serious cat.



I iz lookin angelic, not at treatz, why U ask?



I storez wizdoms in mah feetz and lookz it up later.



Blankie iz best!



Vegetative dinosaur, rhubarbasaurus rex.



U iz not my people, but you iz warm, hmm…



Why yes, I do like foodz! Why U ask?



Cats say baaa, right?



I think you should give me more nipahol…hic!



Yes my precious, they are delicious. They goez crunch!



Princess again, now, with added dignity.

Friday Cat Blogging

Go way! Don wanna come in yet.



Is that a giant treat in your hand?



Nose and toes!



Look it's a big ball
…and there's an exercise device behind her.

Friday Cat Blogging

Pretty maids all in a row…



Go way—napzzing.



Do you think she'll notice I drank all the coffee?!



Of course it's big enough.
Only parts of me are falling off.



Dude, your arm is really comfortable…and hairy.



Baaaaa—I mean, Meeeeow.

New (Old) in Print (E)

I've been announcing this everywhere, so I figure I should let those who check in at the blog know as well:  AngeLINK Series to Come Out in E-Book Format (Finally!)  My friend and colleague Cheryl Morgan of Wizard's Tower Press and I just signed a contract to make this possible.  I'm SUPER excited, too.  Bruce Jensen, the artist of the original covers, has also volunteered their use for the e-reprints and (as a bonus) will be revealing BRAND-NEW, never before seen art for the fourth book in the trilogy, Apocalypse Array.

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Pretty (bleeping) awesome, right?

Survived CONvergence

I wrote a condensed con report for CONvergence on my LJ account.  But, I know many of you can't access that easily, so I shall reprint it for you in full below.

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I can't even begin to express all the amazing that was CON this year. I had So. Much. Fun.

I also think that I may have made a dildo reference with Tamora Pierce, which is just... awkward. In fact, I'm fairly certain that when/if I get the CONvergence DVD, I'm probably going to be pretty horrified by some of the things that came out of my mouth. This is the only drawback to having caffiene as my drug of choice. Too much coffee can make me stupid (usually funny, but sometimes only because I'm willing to say something no one really should have. EVER.) Also, I think this problem can be summed up by the fact that the single most retweeted line of mine involved me saying, "OMG, I got so much money for that short story; wait, let me take my clothes off." (Which makes no sense out of context, but kind of shows you the state of my over-caffinated brain.)

I met some amazing people who talked me into having a fan twitter account, so I now have Yet Another Secret Identity to keep track of, but, much to my complete surprise, I kind of like Twitter in small doses. It's so much easier to follow seven people than seventy.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure I failed the secret pro party. For one, I invited fans. Our squeeling scared off all the boys, but I also feel bad that my friends LJ-naomikritzer and LJ-jiawen probably ended up feeling left out as well. I did have a couple of panels from hell, which I should recount at some point in great and grisly detail but the gist of both of them can be summed up thusly: TOO MUCH TESTOSTERONE and OMG-at-least-read-the-genre-you're-bashing-or-I-will-go-commando-on-your-a$$.

In general, if I had a thinky-thought about CONvergence this year it is to wonder if there was a little blowback (as it were) towards women and womanly-things thanks to the theme, which was "Women of Wonder."

Now, sadly I must return to the Real Life (tm). What a let down! For one, I have no minion (yes, I got a minion as a perk of being of Guest of Honor,) and, thus, no one to fetch me things and/or generally take care of MY needs. I'm now back to caring for others and doing the dishes.

*sigh*

I put this as a comment on Tate's Renji post below. But I...

I put this as a comment on Tate's Renji post below. But I've decided it's important enough to be a separate post.

My gosh, Tate, what happened? Oh, why am I asking? Being a writer is about rejection -- among other things. It's also about fans and fan mail and good reviews and friends who are writers and readers. And the awesome feeling when something you have written is RIGHT.

CONvergence

I will be at CONvergence starting tomorrow, as one of their guests of honor.  If you'd like to see me talk (or witness my bizarre time-traveling hair), feel free to stop in.  My schedule can be found here.

Dusting off Bruised Knees

For those of you just tuning in, I've been more than a little obsessed on an Anime called "Bleach." In particular, my brain has seized upon a character named Renji Abarai, over whom I've expended a great deal of creative energy writing fan fic and drawing fan art.

I realized, today, why I love Renji. Renji isn't the hero of "Bleach," no, far from it. He's not even the most powerful or cool guy in the show. In point of fact, he gets his a$$ handed to him on a surprisingly regular basis. The reason I love Renji is he gets back up. Every damn time. There is ABSOLUTELY no keeping Renji Abarai down.



Today, I need to be Renji. I need his indomitable spirit. I feel kind of crushed by a particular rejection -- shredded, quite honestly. But, as much as I want to just lay down and die, what I need to do is get up off my knees, *again*, and fight