February 2011
18 posts
Oh, I remembered what I was going to post today. (sick with cold brain no like think.) jimhines has been posting his writing income for the past few years as a reality check on the idea that writing is an easy way to get rich, etc. Since I just recently figured out my writing income this year for taxes, I thought I would do the same. But to make it more fun, I’ll do a poll, and then post the...
Got Bella back from the vet late yesterday afternoon. Her distended fang has been removed, and it was an infected root that was pushing it out. She had a shot for pain before she left the vet, so she was very stoned last night. I have to give her antibiotic drops and take her back in ten days for a check-up. My allergies are either crazy bad or I have a cold in my nose. Fortunately I think I got...
Woke up this morning a little congested and sore-throaty; hopefully it’s allergies and not a cold. If it’s allergies, I suspect it’s caused by the big pile of dirt. This morning I need to drop Bella off at the vet to have her distended fang dealt with, and then move a bunch of poo-filled dirt into the raised garden bed before it rains. I don’t think the neighbors would...
A while back we decided we wanted to try planting a vegetable garden and a couple of weekends ago Troyce built a raised bed for it. This morning we had the bulk dirt and rock place deliver a load a dirt for it. Dirt from the bulk dirt place is ridiculously cheap compared to a home garden place like Lowe’s, but you have to get kind of a lot of it. I have been moving dirt via wheelbarrow and...
Making this a separate post, because the previous one got a little long: Bidding is now open at the Con or Bust Online Auction Welcome to [info]con_or_bust, which helps fans of color to attend SFF conventions, principally WisCon. There are many wonderful items up for bid, like homemade cookies and signed books. My item is here: an autographed copy of The Cloud Roads.
At ConDFW, where I woke up at 5:00 am for no reason. I have two panels and a reading this morning so I should be pretty busy for a while. Started with ten copies of The Cloud Roads in the dealers room and it was down to five when they closed last night, so that was very nice to see. Before I left home, I got Bella’s test results for everything except her thyroid, which they’re still...
Yesterday I pretty much just worked, then took Bella to her vet appointment for her shots and check-up. She’s fourteen now, so needs to go in for her senior wellness testing tomorrow morning. Links: First the bad news: Borders Files Bankruptcy After Years of Market Losses At least 200 stores will close. Texas Library Association Take Action Site Take Action NOW!! This link is set up to...
Me and my husband went out to eat last night and realized we would be very bad food bloggers. The restaurant had a special fancy Valentines dessert involving a little pyramid made of piped hard sugar, paired with a little pyramid of chocolate mousse with a hard chocolate shell. We ate it all before we even thought of taking a picture. (The hard sugar pyramid was acting as a cage for two small...
Very misty morning here: Talked to friends on Saturday who also loved True Blood and remembered how much I’m looking forward to the next season. I miss Lafayette. I’m also looking forward to more Eureka and Psych. About the only thing I’m watching now is Top Chef. If you missed it Sunday, I did a guest post on the Night Bazaar: Stealing Time about wedging time for writing into...
I have a guest post on the Night Bazaar: Stealing Time about wedging time for writing into your life any way you can, and how people will occasionally try to prevent you from doing that. links: Omnivoracious: Kameron Hurley on Fearing the Woman in the Dark Alley If you ran into a svelte woman in a dark alley wearing leather pants and a halter top, would your first instinct be to fear for your...
I had some wine last night and it was really good. That’s about all I have to report. The good news: We’ve had the first sighting of The Cloud Roads in the wild. etain_antrim found it at The Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver, Colorado last night. Yay! The very bad news: Borders gets ready to file for bankruptcy. links: WebEcoist: Eco Resorts: 13 Rustic Retreats for True Nature Lovers...
I’ve been getting some questions on when The Cloud Roads ebook version is coming out. There’s some confusion because even though the book’s official release date is March, people who ordered directly from the publisher are now getting their copies. Amazon now has a shipping date for the trade paperback of February 22, so (if Amazon isn’t just confused) if you preordered...
cschells asked I just started doing some fiction writing for the first time in a long, long while—the last thing I wrote before that was my dissertation! So I’m curious, when you come to the end of writing a book, how much prose would you say you’ve deleted? I would guess that in the course of writing my dissertation I probably got rid of 10 times what I actually kept. I kind of...
I started out the day by falling down the stairs. The stairs are carpeted and I fell backward, so landed on my butt and slid most of the way down. But the two half-full bowls of cat food I was holding went flying and are now all over the stairwell. Not a great start to the week, but it could be worse. Okay, finally got The Element of Fire up on Barnes and Noble as a NookBook. This is the real...
I’m not watching the Superbowl (I originally typed “supperbowl” which may have something to do with the fact that I haven’t had breakfast yet) because I used to watch football (back when I was in college, when the Gipper was playing) but I’ve just gradually lost interest in it over the years. The only TV sports I really get into now are the Olympics (Winter more so...
It’s been below freezing here since Tuesday night, and yesterday most of the state was having rolling blackouts to try to conserve power. I didn’t get one at home, probably because our house is close to both a high school and a hospital. (Though the steam heating plant at the university was down for several hours yesterday.) There’s a winter storm warning starting at noon, so I...
Okay, we have the winners of the drawing for an autographed copy of The Cloud Roads! There was a total of 85 entries — 70 from Live Journal, 14 from Dreamwidth, and 1 from the mirror of my journal on GoodReads. I drew six winners, because it turns out that when you’re drawing names to give people something free, it’s fun and you have this urge to keep going. I know there’s...
Okay, this is the great book drawing post foretold in legend, or the one I mentioned last week. This will be a drawing for a free copy of my new fantasy novel The Cloud Roads. (See a description, cover art, reviews, and sample chapters at that link). Note that these are trade paperbacks, and that the winners can ask to have their book signed and personalized. * Comment on this post with some...
