Kelly McCullough's Blog, page 50

As a particularly noisy fan-grrl about Star Wars, I find ...

As a particularly noisy fan-grrl about Star Wars, I find this post on SF Signals from A. Lee Martinez about "Why You Should Stop Telling Fans to 'Get Over It'" lovely, just lovely.

I am going to try to commit this line to memory, actually: "We tell stories, create art, etc. because we want to have something to care about. It's the whole point."

Yeah. EXACTLY.

I wouldn't scream if I didn't CARE. And, I can only hope that out there, somewhere, there's a fan screaming about my universe.

Friday Cat Blogging

Mighty hunter stalks the veldt, or the video game…
whatever.



Nose down is sexy! Zzzzzzz



Hiding, duh!



Otter cat needs a really wide slide.



Cat light, cat dark.



Leaping and pouncing mostly, why do you ask?



Worship me, and I won't have to kill you.

Frying Pans and Dead Stars

From New Scientist, I give you frying pans and dead stars.

Mostly because I just wanted to say that.

Friday Cat Blogging on Monday…Oops

Whazzatzzzzzzzzzzzzz?



Noble is my middle name



Sunlight and sleepy cat



I'd go to the sun, but then I'd have to move



That's where the treat is supposed to be. Get on it.



Clever, that's me.



Evil cat can kill with yoga

Play List of the Damned

I think blog interviewers can smell fear or dorkiness or something, because, inevitably, they ask me this question: Do you have a play list for each of your novels? If not, can you think of a few relevant songs?

I always FAIL play list.

I haz no play list. In fact, I write all my novels to silence, or at least what passes for silence in a mostly empty house with a few cats, gerbils, and some fish. Sometimes I bust out and write in a place as noisy as a coffee shop, but I almost never consciously listen to whatever is playing on the overhead speakers because my brain wants to either listen to the story of the song, or sing along.

I will, occasionally, plug in my .mp3 play and hit random, but the songs that come up are so incredibly dorky that if I admitted to owning them legions of fans would desert me for the mere fact that I really kind of still dig Mike and the Mechanics.... (What? "Silent Running" is a great song! It's science fiction!)

sigh.

NASA APOD - Sunspot

Here is one of the sharper views of the Sun ever taken. This stunning image shows remarkable details of a dark sunspot across the image bottom and numerous boiling granules which appear like kernels of corn across the top. Taken in 2002, the picture was made using the Swedish Solar Telescope operating on the Canary Island of La Palma. The high resolution image was achieved using sophisticated adaptive optics, digital image stacking, and other processing techniques to counter the blurring effect of Earth's atmosphere. Currently a sunspot group is crossing the Sun that is so large it can be easily seen by the cautious observer even without magnification.

Do not look directly at the sun, even if you have been told there are lovely, large sunspots crossing it. Everyone knows this, right?

In Case You Missed It...

It's kind of the talk of the town: Authors Say Agent Tried to Straighten Gay Characters in YA.

With some interesting follow up on Sherwood Smith's LJ.

Also, some interesting numbers about GLBT YAs in general.

The Last of Everything, As it Were

I got some bad news from my agent yesterday afternoon. It seems that Peguin is _not_ interested in more stories about Ana Parker, alas. So, ALMOST EVERYTHING will be the final installment.

Luckily, I've been down this road before with the Garnet Lacey series, and I actually wrote ALMOST EVERYTHING as a possible ender for the series. I had HOPED to write another set of books in which Ana is the Queen of the Vampires, and then another triology where she's the Empress, etc., etc. all the way up to Goddess, perhaps!

But, as it turns out, she'll always just be a princess. :-)

The silver lining is that I'm still hard at work on PRECINCT 13, so you can look for more things by me in the near future. I'm planning to propose a sequel to PRECINCT 13, as well as something, as the Monty Python folks would say, completely different.

So... fingers crossed.

New Nearby Planets

... like 50 of 'em, and a bunch are even Earth-like.

Me thinks we may have neighbors. Perhaps they fly saucers... ;-)

Lunch Date with Adam!

MinnSpec Meetup will be hosting a lunch with the newest Wyrdsmith, Adam Stemple, at the Lund's in Uptown next Sunday, September 18 at noon. Adam Stemple, author of Singer of Souls, Stewart of Song, and other pieces, will speak with the group. Bring your writing related questions for a relaxed Q&A session over lunch. The Meetup page can be found here.

Adam Stemple's website: http://www.adamstemple.com/.

Lund's "Uptown" can be found at 1450 West lake Street, Minneapolis, MN 55408.