N~space

Yet again it's been a while and I am the worst blogger in the world, etc etc. I've been teaching this class, and it's sucking up all my time--even my writing time, which is a hardship, let me tell you. The class is going surprisingly well, though teaching creative writing is nigh impossible. I use the Stephen King toolbox approach, which works as well as anything else, I find.

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Anyway! Book things.

One is the cover of The Magic Thief: Found, which is out in the U.S. on May 25, 2010.

My editor asked for a description of the dragon to give the artist (the wonderfully talented Antonio Caparo) and I said, "Big and flamey!" And that is what we got. I LOVE it.

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Next bit of news. The latest international rights sale is audio rights in Danish. Weird, huh?

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Speaking of audio, on these long drives up to the college where I'm teaching, I'm listening to The Magic Thief: Lost audio which, to my local librarians' entertainment, I had to put on hold to check out, because my author copies haven't arrived yet. The voice actor is so good. Makes me see that the book can mean different things if read different ways.

I'm also listening to Joseph Delaney's The Curse of the Bane, one of his Last Apprentice series, and it's terrific. A great voice actor, and such a good book. I'm learning a lot about pacing and plot and upping the stakes.

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There was something else, but I can't remember it now. Hrm...

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So what do you think of the cover?!??

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Today is my mom’s birthday!

That’s mom and her awesome beau when they took me out for a birthday brunch in August. Don’t they look fabulous together?

And this is one of my favorite pictures of us… and one of my favorite memories:

That’s me and mom playing a piano duet at her old place in Maryland. No matter how many years it had been since either of us had played the piano, we’d haul out that dogeared duet book and plunk our way through “German Dance” or whatever it was called. Mom always took the hard part, and always played better than me. What can I say? She’s mom!

Happy birthday, Mom — I love you!

Originally published at jennreese.com. You can comment here or there.

One of our friends is having a Christmasnparty in which we are asked to bring school supplies for the Salvation Army. Last year, we picked a name from the gift tree and we were nought gifts that they had asked for. Last year, I bought some clothes and a little doll for a girl.

So I went in search of school supplies and found that they weren’t all that economical. Like the notebooks were like $2.00. And though there is nothing wrong with a $2.00 notebook, I feel like I should be able to find them for $1.00. Am I looking for something that doesn’t exist?

So I’m asking you guys. Do you know where I can buy school supplies for relatively cheap? I want the biggest bang for my dollar. An what else is considered school supplies besides paper and pencils? Scissors? Glue? I don’t have a clue!

Thanks in advance!

Crossposted to Samantha Ling, Dreamwidth and Livejournal

• 23:40 315/365 Remembrance flic.kr/p/7f2rBL #
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On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.

Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.

We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!

As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.

In 2006, Wal-Mart was somewhat relatively gay-friendly, partnering with with National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce to "reach out to people who are a significant part of our customer base" (quote from then-Wal-Mart Spokesman Bob McAdam) Yet at the same time, it wouldn't offer benefits to their employees who were in same-sex relationships. By November of 2006, after conservative groups threatened to boycott Wal-Mart on post-Thanksgiving sales, they backed away from the alliance with NGLCC. In 2007, after conservative christian groups threatened yet another boycott, Wal-Mart stopped giving any donations to gay rights groups.

Here's the latest travesty A Chicago-area gay male couple was shopping in a Niles, Michigan Wal-Mart with their adopted children, two special-needs twins. The men were stopped by store employees and accused of shoplifting some lighters. Although they produced a receipt for the lighters, the couple claims they were verbally threatened and abused by store employees, and told they had to go to a "detention room" for more questioning. (Wal-Mart claims the two men became "uncooperative.") The couple refused to go to the detention room and asked that the police be called. The police arrived, but they didn't much help: they handcuffed one of the two men, put both of them in the back of separate police cruisers, and allowed Wal-Mart employees to take the children to the detention room. When it became apparent that the men had not shoplifted the lighters, they were released... but no one from the store apologized. In fact, they were told that they were permanently banned from Wal-Mart.

I don't know that I've ever bought anything from a Wal-Mart. I think I'll keep up that habit...

Okay, time to start recapping SYTYCD!

Karen, the Latin dancer who is weekly turning Adam straight, talks about how she and her dancer husband split up after he was cut in Vegas. What will happen to Ryan and Ashleigh when one of them gets cut, I wonder? She and hip-hop Kevin are doing the Hustle. I freaking love the Hustle. That's my childhood, the Hustle. I'm not crazy about Kevin in this dance. I can't tell if it's the choreography or his dancing I don't like, but his legs feel stiff and kind of gsllumphing. He almost dropped her when it was over, but they played it off beautifully. The judges love what Kevin did, so apparently it was the choreography I didn't like. I'll go with that, I like Kevin a lot, generally.

Ashleigh says that she is a big nerd and tells us what she studied in college, etc. Ashleigh thinks America thinks she's a dummy. She and Jakob are doing a jazz routine with a cane. A cane that has been given no meaning but that it's the third member of their dance. They are dancing to Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood with the line "When you wanna come" taken out. Really? It's kind of like when the Stones had to sing "Let's spend some time together" rather than "Let's spend the night together," they aren't fooling anyone, we all know the lyrics, Fox. Besides that, it's a really great dance. And Jakob is just as awesome as the judges keep telling him he is. He and Ashleigh are really terrific together.

Pauline and Peter, the last tapper standing, are next. They are doing the quickstep, aka the kiss of death. I think it's great, helps that there is a good story, but Peter's frame sucks. Adam agrees that the story helped the kiss of death aspect of it. Nigel says that the technique wasn't great, but that he didn't care a bit because the performance was so good. And only in the dreaded quickstep can Mary's comment that it wasn't a trainwreck be looked at as a rave review!

Kathryn and Legacy are doing a Broadway dance. Dear God I hope it's not by terrible Tyce. Hooray, it's by someone named Andy instead! And it was terrific! I really love both of these dancers, but I have such a crush on Legacy that I could hardly watch her. He is so cute. She is not getting good notices, but he is.

Channing and Victor, new partners, are doing a contemporary routine about a toxic relationship. Victor better prove himself worthy for not having left last week, when I thought he should have. Wow. Okay. I accept that he stayed instead of Philip, that was incredible. And amazing choreography. Nigel is being picky that it was contemporary and they are both contemporary dancers and it was only great, not a trancendence to make the stars seem dim. I'm thinking that Nigel's standards are a teeny bit lofty.

Ellenore and Ryan are next. Ryan again telling us how heterosexual he is. Lil C is choreographing! He never choreographed a single thing last season, I'm looking forward to seeing this. Um? What the fuck are they wearing? Apparently they are bank robbers or something but they are dressed like mountain climbers. Are they robbing a bank halfway up a mountain? Yeah. Not impressed. And I love Ellenore and Ryan, but this is awful. Adam is giving good notices, I'm glad. He says it was a good yeoman's job, not great but good, especially with how far it is from their styles. Nigel doesn't like it at all.

Mollee and Nathan are salsa-ing next. Mollee is deaf in her left ear. And I'm half deaf in my right ear! No wonder I liked her right from the start even when everyone I know was howling "She's gonna ruin the season!" Deafies unite! Good Lord. I don't think Nathan has bones. Is it cheating, not to have bones? She's doing well, but he is ridiculously good. Right up until the end when that lift went a little wonky. Adam doesn't like it. How did he not see that Nathan was awesome? Has he gone blind? I don't understand these judges. They all agree.

Noelle and my boy Russell are doing Afro-jazz. This might be really interesting. There might be a reason it's last of the evening. Okay, I didn't even know Noelle was on the stage, Russell was the only thing I saw. I think she was doing a good job, but I just couldn't see her, he was so incredible. Adam: "You know, its crazy, when I think African princess, the first person is Noelle in my head. It's amazing, it's like a list of one!"

My favourites, Legagy, Ryan and Russell were two out of three great tonight. The dance order, descending, was:

1. Channing/Victor toxic relationship contemporary
2. Ashleigh/Jakob cane jazz dance
3. Noelle/Russell Afro-jazz princess and frog
3. (tied with above) Kathryn/Legacy I Wanna Be Like You Broadway
5. Pauline/Peter hula dancer quickstep
6. Karen/Kevin Hustle
7. Mollee/Nathan samba
8. Ellenore/Ryan hip-hop bank robbers

I don't know who's going, but I hope not Ellenore and Ryan.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

I do not know how time got away from me today. So I am just going to do a quick post. Here are a few people at Disney wearing unusual hats.

I don’t know where they got these hats. I didn’t see them at Disney, so they must have brought them from elsewhere. They are unique to say the least!

Crossposted to Samantha Ling, Dreamwidth and Livejournal

Can anyone recommend a good e-reader for reading documents (either MS Word docs or PDFs)? In the old days, I used to be perfectly happy reading long documents on my computer screen, but for the last several months, I've really struggled with it. I don't know whether to blame my CFS or just the fact I've been seriously sleep-deprived for the last 13 months, but by the end of the day, when I finally have free time, I just can't bear to read documents on my computer screen at all, because it hurts my head too much...

...and that's been causing serious havoc in my critiquing schedule. I am SOOOO humiliatingly late on a couple of crits for some really wonderful writers, and I hate it...but I just haven't been able to physically do it.

My iTouch works fine for reading published ebooks, using the "Stanza" program, but it can't handle PDFs or MS Word docs in any really usable way.

Do Kindles work well for those? Or Sony e-readers? Any suggestions would be hugely appreciated (by my crit partners at least as much as by me)!

As I may have mentioned, our all-new episodes of Slangman’s World have been airing on Georgia Public Broadcasting (the 3rd largest PBS affiliate in the US) since October 5th. But now, for the first time, you can see three of the 90-second episodes on our Slangman’s World website! (Just click on the “Videos” icon. Flash required.)

Aside from enjoying some awesome animation and music, you will witness my voice acting debut! That’s right, I’m the little blue book named Wordy, pictured below:

Copyright Slangman’s World. Used with permission.

After you listen, you probably won’t believe that it’s me. I assure you that’s my unaltered voice, and Heather, Greg, and Sarah Castle can confirm. They witnessed a live “performance” at WFC. I think they’re still laughing. :)

Originally published at jennreese.com. You can comment here or there.

How nice, they are introducing Kelly as "singer Kelly Osbourne" rather than "reality star Kelly Osbourne", because that's kind of embarrassing.

They are talking about the top five and what everyone has to work on and again, everyone's criticism of Mya is entirely Dmitri's choreography, nothing about her at all, not one bit! Is this all a blind so that it won't be so obvious that she is the winner from week 1? That's my guess.

Mya and Dmitri do a quickstep that looked pretty classic to me, there might not be such horseshit from Len in the marks this time. And, after a fakeout where it sounded like he was going to shit all over her again, he said that there was nothing to criticize! Might we see a 10? And we did!

The hateful Aaron, who will be whining in the rehearsal footage about being in the bottom three again, I have no doubt. Ah, and they are trying to make him seem like not such a dick by him saying sadly how he's never won anything in his life and him being all caring about Karina being sick. Somebody's noticed that the audience hates him! They are doing the foxtrot, and for some reason Karina is dressed as Jeannie out of the bottle. Yay, low scores!

Now Joanna is doing the quickstep. Derek is dressed like a waiter on a cruise ship. That was pretty good, but Mya's was better, I don't think she'll be getting a 29. Her legs seemed very stiff. Not good judges remarks, but hopefully she'll get higher marks than Aaron did. Nope, exactly the same!

Okay, here's my girl Kelly, whom I think is likely to go this week, although I'd love it if she held up until the semis! She and Louis are doing a really smooth foxtrot. He's one of the best choreographers of the pros, no question. He's like Cheryl, he doesn't try to outdance his partner, he dances with her. The judges like it, though Carrie-Ann noticing what I did, that she doesn't spot her turns.

Donny is visibly thinner than he was in week 1. It's the Dancing With the Stars diet! He and Kym are doing the waltz. Donny is better than any of the rest of them at getting into the character of the dance. He sells it facially every time. That sounds like damning with faint praise, but it's actually big praise. Dancing is acting and if you make the audience believe the characters, the story and the relationship, that's half the battle.

Now they are all going to do a Latin dance, each in a different decade, because otherwise they'd never fill two hours with only five couples.

Mya and Dmitri and Dmitri's fake moustache are doing a 70's style samba. Let me tell you, for people whom I do not believe were actually born in the 1970s, that was one decently authentic disco-style dance. It was right out of American Bandstand, circa 1976. Wow, and there was the first perfect 30 of the season! I would like to congratulate the surgeon who removed the stick from Len's ass.

Aaron is doing a 90's samba, and is teaching Karina 90's moves. There were 90's moves? I wasn't paying much attention in the 90's, I guess. And they danced to that Spin Doctors song! I may not have paid attention to the moves, but that was the last time I liked any popular music.

Joanna and Derek are doing a paso from the future. Why does the future always mean emotionless robots? But you know what? Totally one of the best dances of the night. And the judges not only agree with me, they are all kvelling all over Derek's awesome choreography. Tom says, "Tonight we have learned that in the future we'll dance really well, but we're going to look ridiculous." I freaking love Tom.

Kelly's doing a jive in the Latin round? Since when is the jive a Latin dance? Samba, rhumba, paso double, tango, yes, jive? Really? She's teaching Louis go-go moves, actual authentic go-go moves! To a man who was born a lot closer to the 60's than she was! The thing is, when people think of the 70's or the 80's they think of one thing, for the 60's you can go in several different directions, but because Kelly is British they went in the more interesting direction, i.e. early 60's Mary Quant/Twiggy style. They're a couple of Mods up there! As someone who dated a Mod throwback in the 80's, it all looks very sweet and familiar. However, they are dancing to "River Deep, Mountain High", which doesn't match the look. And Len is gonna HATE the prop use! They throw in some pony and some swim and some twist steps. Though this is all my style, this Hullaballoo stuff, I don't think this is Kelly's best work. Though all of the judges disagree with me, which I'm glad about! Love the Kelly!

Donny as Adam Ant is doing an 80's paso. Kym is dressed Madonna style, which everyone remembers, of course, but no-one remembers the awesome Adam Ant look. O God, they are doing it to "You Turn Me Round"! Great song choice! Seems slowed down a little, though. Man, I loved the Latin Round of Various Eras, I think it was my favourite thing this whole season.

So the order of the evening is Mya (at only one point off of perfect), then Joanna, Kelly and Donny/Aaron tied. Seven points separate Mya and Joanna, but after Mya the other four are only two points apart.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

I’ve had it in mind to write a piece of fiction set in Victorian San Francisco. I grew up in that area and in our history classes we had learned about the gold rush. And in some small towns, their whole attraction is that they were once a mining town. They are actually quite proud of it, erecting statues to commemorate those times and even selling you trinkets to allow you to pan for your own gold.

But the thing about setting stories in the Guilded Age of San Francisco is that there are more than a few novels based in that time and place. After all, it was a very exciting time and a much documented time as well. There are plenty of resource materials from books to web sites to the original newspaper articles dating back to the mid-1800’s.

So I thought, since I live in Florida now that I could very well set a story here. My preliminary research was quite shocking, though I don’t know why it would be. Florida is the southernmost state in the lower 48, after all.

There were many items regarding Florida. The most exciting time seemed to be in the 1600’s. There are lost merchant and pirate ships strewn about the southern coastline currently. Ponce de Leon and the fountain of youth and all that. But my interest lay in the 19th century.

What I discovered is that Florida is indeed the south. There is a saying here that you actually have to go north to reach the south, but Florida has it’s roots very much in Southern history.

You see Florida was a plantation culture in the 1800’s. Out of the population of 140,000, nearly half were slaves. During the Civil War not only did Florida secede, but they were also the first to be one of the confederate states.

In the 1900’s there was a series of lynchings. It became so frightening to live in Florida that there was a mass exodus to find a better life elsewhere.

In guidebooks about the south, Florida is never included. But I think that has more to do with the influx of New Englanders. They don’t call it the Fifth Borough for nothing. It’s probably the only thing that keeps Florida from feeling like the south completely. Not that there is anything wrong with the south. I just wasn’t intending on writing a story about plantation life.

It would be a distinctly different story if I set it in Florida. There would be southern belles, land owners, and slaves. That is not the story I wanted to tell. At least not this particular story. There is always a chance that I will set another story here.

So I have decided that the story will remain in San Francisco,. After all, there are railroad barons, bonanza kings, corruption, mayhem, and secret underground tunnels not to mention the rich diversity of people that settled there. And of course, earthquakes!!

Until tomorrow!

Crossposted to Samantha Ling, Dreamwidth and Livejournal

In trying to do a google search on something else trans-related just now, I happened to come across this article from September about Iran courts permitting a transsexual marriage.

Some interesting cultural issues there.

http://www.pamie.com/archives/2009/11/i-love-my-team-of-old-lady-skaters.html

Here's the promo for my upcoming Baby Doll Brawl (this Sunday!!). Fun fact: during "and fight their way..." that's me and my Meteorfight teammate Risky a Go-Go taking out two opposing team members, including their jammer, using her arm and my ass. (And then a few seconds later you can see me fling myself onto the rail in order to avoid a pile-up, where I hang there (but also knock over an opposing team member! yeah? anybody? ... okay, fine.)

At the orientation meeting we were told this will be the sixth Baby Doll Brawl in the history of the LA Derby Dolls. This is when Helen Surly Frown turned to me and groaned, "Oh, Holla. You know what that means? We've skated in half of them. HALF! We are the oldest Fresh Meat of all time. Rancid, gross, smelly, old meat."

Come watch the creakiest, hurtingest, oldest rookie skaters take on the newbiest of the noobs when Hell's Belles defeat the Ice Vixens this Sunday at the Doll Factory. Tickets on sale now. If you're too far away, you can still support your LA derby girl by watching the live feed.

This morning I woke up with a yen for bagels.

No, scratch that. Yesterday morning I woke up with a yen for bagels, but because I’d slept in, and going out to get bagels would have required me to shower and get dressed, and going out to get bagels wasn’t really a good idea anyway (see Thursday’s post regarding unexpected and significant drop in income for the next few months), so instead we ate pie and cookies for breakfast. And then yesterday I sent out a plea on Twitter for someone to share with me bagel recipes that would actually work, and my sister-in-law came through. So this morning when I got up, I made bagels.

I have attempted to make bagels several times before, but all of those attempts have usually not been very successful. I’ve been doing quite a bit of baking, ever since the kitchen was redone (I even took a class at the local Kitchen Academy this summer with a friend – we spent three hours in a room with a baker from France and learned all kinds of wonderful things about yeast and gluten and dough, and when we left we were overloaded with huge piles of baguettes and breadsticks and foccacia and dinner rolls we had made ourselves, and it was So Much Fun), and while I am very, very good at rolls, and very mediocre at bread (it never rises as much as it’s supposed to), I have so far been completely unsuccessful at bagels. Despite doing all the correct steps (mixing, rising, boiling, baking), all previous attempts at bagels have always come out flat. No, I mean literally – the bagels emerge from the oven flat.

The recipe my sister-in-law sent me was an improvement on all the others I’ve tried, in that the bagels were much less flat than before. But they still do not possess that quality of ‘bagelness’ that I associate with a good, true bagel. Those round things you can purchase in stores, wrapped in plastic, have no business calling themselves bagels, because it’s obvious they missed out on that crucial ‘boiling’ step. But the bagels we used to get at the little local bagel place (before they closed down) and the bagels we now occasionally pick up at Noah’s, all have a dense, chewy consistency that I am so far unable to replicate.

This is not to say, of course, that they were not tasty. Because the bagels that I made this morning were certainly delicious. They just aren’t quite…bagels. Yet.

I also made a loaf of whole wheat walnut bread from a recipe on the back of the King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour bag, mainly because it caught my eye. Naturally (see earlier comment regarding my continued mediocrity at creating pretty loaves), the bread that won’t really work for sandwiches turned out rounded and perfect. Bah.

After a morning spent playing with flour and yeast, it was nice to get out of the house and spend an afternoon up in the hills with some friends. We’ve been trying to coordinate a trip to Apple Hill with them for a few weeks now, but illness or work schedules kept getting in the way, so when we finally all had a free day, we grabbed it. This time, Richard and I did not buy any more apples (most of the apples we bought last week are still sitting on the counter because I have yet to drag out the apple corer/peeler/slicer gadget and get busy), but we did take advantage of the chance for more of the very best caramel apples, and apple pie, steaming fresh from the oven and drizzled with cider sauce. It was a perfectly lovely day to be outside, wandering around, looking at crafts and eating apples, and catching up with good friends.

Back home, a little more baking (I’d put dough for pretzels in the refrigerator yesterday morning), this time with Richard’s help (since rolling out all the pretzels goes faster with four hands than it does with two), and then we caught up on a few of our favorite shows on the DVR. And then we realized that the day was almost over and neither of us had cranked out a single word on our novels, so off to the computer room with us, for a few hours of furious typing, or at least in my case, not so furious, but enough short bursts of something resembling creativity to keep my word count just a bit ahead of the game.

Nanowrimo update: 13,562 words, some of which would be a lot easier if I wasn’t making them up out of thin air and then having to remember exactly how to *spell* them the next time they came into play.

Originally published at A Cat By Any Other Name. Please leave any comments there.

Good morning!  Know what's a great way to start off your week?  Reading a brand-new story at Strange Horizons.

"True Names" by Stephanie Burgis

We hope you will like it!

Fans of the lovely Ms. Burgis may be excited to know that her young person's novel, A Most Improper Magick, will be coming out this spring. Here is a quickie book trailer:

 

And for something completely different, check out last week's story:

Nomadology, by Chris Nakashima-Brown

I watched the muted television. On-screen, stop-motion set pieces illustrated a science fiction fantasy of the destruction of the state apparatus and the abolition of private property mediated by alien invasion and natural disaster. The only sound in the room was the soft clicking of aluminum knitting needles, like a DIY Geiger counter monitoring our entropic half-lives.

Wooot! I was soooo happy today to click onto Strange Horizons and see my story "True Names" published there! "True Names" is the historical dark fantasy/horror story that I wrote for my brother Dave as his Christmas present last year. I really hope some of you will have the time to read it, and I hope even more that you'll enjoy it!

You can read the story here.

I have lots of photos to post in the next day or two from our trip to Raglan Castle (LOVE that castle!), but right now we're on our way out for a day trip into Bristol, one of my favorite cities. I'll be wandering around bookstores, eating good food, and glowing the whole time with the happiness of getting this story published in my favorite magazine. :)

I watched the new episode of the Housewives of Orange County. I know I shouldn’t watch this junk. It’s definitely one of those secret pleasures that I shouldn’t be telling you about. I’m actually a little embarrassed. But Anderson Cooper is watching it. He’s admitted it. So it can’t be that bad right? Actually, I think he watches the Atlanta one…which I also watch…

So anyway, I watched the new episode today. It seems to me that the OC cast seems to have the most issues. Are they snobbier than the rest or is it just me?

Of all the housewives, I think Tamra bothers me the most. She seems to be the most judgmental and acts more superior than the others. To me, she’s getting older and her whole identity was dependent upon being young and beautiful. And now that she’s losing that, I think she’s having a hard time.

I understand that too. I’m no longer young and skinny. There are times where I look at my old clothes and wonder where did all that time go? I look at my old pictures and think, Jeez, I was hella skinny. But I also think about those times and think about how young I really was and I had something to prove. I don’t feel like that so much anymore.

I’ve come to a point in my life where I’ve let it all go. Life’s too short to hold on to anything, especially those petty things said under stress or flippantly or said without thought. I’ve even let things go that were said with a mean spirit.

Most recently, an acquaintance said that my new haircut made me look older. I ignored her because she says such things. Then she repeated even louder for everyone to hear. I had a whole series of retorts that were both negative and personal attacks, and I said none of them. There are more important things in life than holding on those sorts of things. So if there were issues at some point, I’ve wiped it all clean and I’m pretending that none of it happened. What about you?

Crossposted to Samantha Ling, Dreamwidth and Livejournal

Okay, someone asked for cats, and there’s just no way I can pass up an excuse to post more pictures of my boys. Cairo and Oslo have been keeping me company during my post-WFC cold, and, as always, are a constant source of joy.

First up, one of Oslo’s most interesting sleep positions. Yes, he was actually asleep like this:

From Oslo

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Originally published at jennreese.com. You can comment here or there.

Despite the very best efforts of the kittens (and trust me, they gave their all), I was able to sleep in until almost 9 in the morning. Usually the kittens start romping, which means that invariably they either stomp on, or near, one of the two torties, both of whom tend to prefer to lurk underneath the covers and thus provide prime under-cover-moving-target-monsters that, if you are a kitten and feeling frisky, must be pounced on Right This Moment. And then, once pounced upon, the tortie in question (and despite their extreme personal distaste of each other, in this both torties are perfectly in synch) must throw a hissy fit of epic proportions, launching out from underneath the covers to holler at the offending kittens to quit it, and since one of the very definitions of kittenhood is to be completely oblivious to all consequences of one’s actions (a personality trait that Rupert in particular has taken to heart), this response only invariably leads to more pouncing, and the end result is usually the human in the middle finally gives up in disgust and instead gets out of bed and goes upstairs to make coffee.

Anyway. The point of that long ramble was that this morning, this did *not* happen, so I took advantage of it to have a rare morning of sleeping in. There was leftover pie brought home from last night’s birthday dinner at my parents’ house, so Richard had some of that for breakfast, while I had leftover cookies instead, because the pie in question was cherry and long-term readers know of my aversion to all things berry/cherry related.

There was brief talk about maybe going grocery shopping, or some other sort of useful outing. But instead Richard went off to a write-in after lunch while I stayed home and made pretzel dough and started yogurt and pet the cats and also occasionally poked at my novel. And then later we both headed off to yet another write-in. I thought briefly about skipping it and staying home to either bake something, or try to put a dent in the two huge cases of apples still sitting on the kitchen counter, but I knew that my chances of getting a significant chunk of writing done would be markedly higher if I was somewhere other than home, so off we went.

And it turned out that going was a good thing because over the course of the day (despite distractions of the cat/kitten/baking variety), but mostly during the few hours at the write-in, I managed to churn out almost 5,000 words, which not only means I’ve once again caught up to where I needed to be by end of day (according to the official Nanowrimo Progress Chart), but also puts me a little over. Plus, I got to use the phrase “you are the harbinger of doom” in a writing project for the very first time in my life, so really, it’s a win-win all around.

Nanowrimo update: 12,0008 words total. Still not entirely sure what my overall plot is, but the story is progressing nonetheless, so I am thinking that this whole ‘avoid all semblance of pre-plot-planning’ concept might be working out better than I’d hoped.

Originally published at A Cat By Any Other Name. Please leave any comments there.