Kelly McCullough's Blog, page 91

Astronomy Photo of the Day

The photo today is awesome, but copyrighted, so here is a link.

When I first saw the image, I thought of L-5 colonies, spinning so there is apparent gravity on the inner surface, and I wondered -- for a moment -- if the photo showed a garden growing inside a centrifuge. In fact, no. It is a photo montage. But quite wonderful; and it gives an idea of what trees in an L-5 would look like.

Doug's CONvergence Schedule

I'm going to be doing all of one panel this year at CONvergence:

Practical Rapier for Writers, Friday, 9:30 - 10:30 AM (Doug Hulick, Jamie Feldman)

It's going to be hands-on workshop, with combat demonstrations, explanations about the philosophy of swordplay, and some (very) basic lessons on the use of a rapier, all with the intent of helping the writer better understand and convey what it's like to be in (or watch) a sword fight.

Class size is going to be limited depending on space.

I will be MI...

Eleanor's CONvergence schedule

I have one panel at CONvergence -- at eleven on Satuday morning. It's on writing in multiple genres. Other than that, I will be hanging out Saturday and probably not back on Sunday, though Kelly's panels on Sunday sounds interesting.

Kelly's CONvergence Schedule

Here's my official schedule for CONvergence. I'm told I'm doing something with closing ceremonies as well, though that's not on here.

The Voorwerp workshops should be interesting. As part of a Hubble Space Telescope Education and Outreach project we're going to try to cooperatively write a webcomic. I'm covering the writing side of the workshop. My friend, Dr. Pamela Gay, is doing the astronomy side of the thing as well as having landed the grant in the first place and running the whole show....

Friday Cat Blogging now Lazy Saturday Cat Blogging

Lazy Saturday cat says "..."



Myaster, I have prepared the body.



Sleepy cat says "pthpbbbth!"



Lurky cat is lurking.

Overheard Last Night

1. "Like Bill, I liked the nymph's carved a$$."

2. "Frankly, I'm not interested in Jesus."

3. "I just think you want to avoid saying moist at all times."

And, then, because there is a Jesus novel in workshop, we got a little silly. We had a little impromtu rap that involved the chorus "Yo. Yo. Yeshua." And we pitched a number of Jesus movie ideas including: "Jesus Christ: Revenge of the Rabbi" and, my personal favorite starring Jet Li, "Kung-Fu Savior."

Living in the Future

I just heard a line from Patrick: "The advantage of living in the future is, it's the only place where you can change anything." Pat doesn't know where he got the line, but I love it. It is the ultimate argument for science fiction.

Tricks the Muse Plays

From Doug two days ago:

...You need to learn not only what works for you, but also how you tend to trick yourself as a writer. After all, it's our job to tell convincing lies stories, and we often make our own best targets.What makes it even harder, though, is that sometimes we aren't tricking ourselves. That same urge that is a bad idea nine times out of ten may be the right answer this time

The problem I have is a negative response that comes back repeatedly as I am writing, but is especiall...

Courtesy of NASA and Astronomy Photo of the Day

What are these strange color bands being seen from the International Space Station? The Sun setting through Earth's atmosphere. Pictured above, a sunset captured last month by the ISS's Expedition 23 crew shows in vivid detail many layers of the Earth's thin atmosphere. Part of the Earth experiencing night crosses the bottom of the image. Above that, appearing in deep orange and yellow, is the Earth's troposphere, which contains 80 percent of the atmosphere by mass and almost all of the...

REALLY Geeky Vampire

I participated in an article for GEEK SPEAK MAGAZINE called "Dead and Doing It" in which the authors Rachel Hyland and Kate Nagy plumb the depths of the question that I'm sure boggles many book sellers, "Why vampires?" (with the implied corollary, why are they _still_ so hot??)

If you read my answer, you'll see that I, er, *totally* geeked out on the answer. I guess I thought I was participating at WisCON or something because I actually said "sexually transgressive."

I also discovered that I'm...