Harry Connolly's Blog, page 210
January 18, 2010
Free DVD offer still ongoing!
There are still 30 copies of BATTLE FOR TERRA waiting to be given to anyone who donates at least $25 bucks to The Red Cross for their relief efforts in Haiti. The film's producer says they've raised $2700 so far. See details for how to collect on his web site.
First, a great video
Mightygodking just posted this, saying it's a couple years old but awesome for those who haven't seen it before. That includes me, and maybe you:
Some strong language in there, mixed with the whoa!.
Second thing: You know those people at parties who don't have a TV and make sure they tell as many people as possible? Well, that's me now. I've mentioned this in comments once or twice, but never in an actual post: We can't watch TV anymore.
It wasn't planned and we didn't renounce it in a...
January 17, 2010
Send an extraction team!
My son just put the ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS dvd in. Get me out of here!
January 16, 2010
Wasted hours
Yesterday I was feeling like death warmed over, and I told my wife to make sure I got to be early. (I have a habit of puttering when I'm tired or depressed). After dinner, I put away the leftovers, loaded the dishwasher, checked my emails, made suggestions to my son on his dirigible designs, then said "I'm going to bed now."
My wife, who'd twice said we had to wrap thing things up early so I could go to sleep early, looked surprised. It wasn't even 7:30 yet.
But I put Saturday clothes out ...
FYI: query letter analysis
For those who are interested, lit agent Kristin Nelson is breaking down and analyzing successful query letters on her blog (LiveJournal feed). I found her original series on queries very helpful.
January 15, 2010
Randomness for 1/15
2) Sushi Etiquette.
3) Crowd-sourcing: tool of evil. At some point later I may want to talk about this in more depth, but I'm not sure how I'd approach the subject. Maybe what I'd like to see in the hypothetical example is people gaming the TURK system by choosing the least likely matches–they'd earn those same pennies while giving bad information; downside: I'd hate to be the guy who looks least like the person Iranian authorities are trying to ID. Hmm.
4) Topics...
via James Nicoll
Author Kage Baker is very ill.
"If we are lucky, the therapies will win her a few months; if we are incredibly lucky, 6 months to a year. If she gets more than that, it will be a literal miracle. "
Anyone who's a fan of her work can find contact info at the link above and send good wishes.
Not a rant
In the "This is freaking annoying" category, the increasingly out of touch Wall Street Journal tries to cover The Death of the Slush Pile. Never mind that the author trots out the same old chestnuts about bestsellers being rejected and Pultizer-winners being plucked from the slush, she adds a dose of "Wasn't the internet supposed to fix this?" and "Connections still matter!" then goes straight to confusing book publishing slush with film/TV script slush. Grrr.
Here's an instructive...
Nice place you have here. Buy my book.
I'd planned to drop a link to this article into a "Randomness" entry for later posting, but actually I want to talk about it.
Click through and check it out, please: Stephen Elliott did an unusual sort of book tour to promote The Adderall Diaries: A Memoir of Moods, Masochism, and Murder: he did readings in people's homes. They were all complete strangers to him, but they agreed to pick him up at the airport and host a party for 20 people, minimun, in which he'd read from and talk about...
