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I broke that which could not be broken.
My pride broke it.
Well, actually, I didn't break my blogger. I over wrote it with the Gotta Write template I was working on, thinking, at the time, that I was over writing the old Gotta Write template. I saved, then immediately realized what I'd done...so I ran over to my page, since I hadn't republised yet, and did a view source, then cut and pasted the code back into blogger. Previewed it. Made heh, heh, I'm so clever noises and continued with my day.
I was not so clever. When you do this, the blogger code itself doesn't transfer. So today I finally went and fixed it, and added some other changes to, to try it on.
My Baen arc for John Ringo's There Will Be Dragons has a cool cd with it...and on it a bunch a Sluggy Freelance cartoons! So, I finally got a chance to read the cartoons everyone is talking baout....very, very cool. Check them out at www.sluggyfreelance.com I'll be there. :)
And double cool points to you if you remeber what movie I paraphrased the beginning of the quote from. (Actually, two people are talking, but I changed it so that it was one.)
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 7:08 PM
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This post is more to see if blogger's posting again, but you might want to know, if you tried to read my excerpt for Balancing Act that I fixed the link problem. Sigh. Love webpages soemtimes, don't you?
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 11:11 AM
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Wednesday, January 14, 2004I spent the weekend helping www.gottawritenetwork.com set up it's new front page blogger. It simulataneously reminded me why i hated hand coding while making me rabidly desire changing my own template around...check it out if you get a chnace. If you're an author or reader, it's a great place.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 3:10 PM
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As the page turns...
Tuesday, January 13, 2004Well, early this morning I received my first review copy from Luna. I was surprised how it depressed me...I mean, do I get down when I receive Other Books? Do I get wistful when a someone else's book comes to me? No and no. And I have more "against" them, if you can call it that, since the person who rejected me at the first was not nearly as kind as the one at Luna, and the other never, ever emailed me, not even a "P*** off" letter. Yet, holding my brand new arc, weighing it in my hands, I, who love to stab myself in as many ways as possible couldn't help but think that was the way my book would have looked.
The up side is that it's a Mercedes Lackey book, and I'm rather fond of her. I'm really looking forward to the line up...the next book's going to be by Catherine Asaro, and the one after that, Sarah Zettel. So that's cool. I've liked their books, and really look forward to reading them and reviewing them.
Still, in the back of my head, there's this girl. She's older, tougher, and she chain smokes. And she says to me, how could you ever have expected to get published with Luna with all these stars already on their list?
They still have Balancing Act, tho. This is said by the girl I'd rather be, skinnier than I am, a little more pre-Raphaelite.
The chain smoker takes a long pull on her cigarette, and smirks. She doesn't have to say "For what good it does you."
If I had a mood thingy on my blog, it would say Cindy (and all her personalities) is Bummed.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 12:35 PM
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Friday, January 09, 2004I'd forgotten how absolutely work intensive submitting your work is. I went to www.ralan.com (a huge favorite of mine) and began studying markets out, checking out guidleines, reading websites, trying to get a feel for each place.
I have a three section spiral bound notebook. On the front cover I have the names of my short stories written down, with the word counts next to them. This way I have a handy little reference guide so that I can find out easy if my only romantic fantasy story is below the three thousand word requirement in the guidelines. (It wasn't.) The first section is the messiest...I've been trying to hock my short stories, on and off, for years. The first entry is March of 1999. The last? June 2001. Some of my stories are no longer formatted, and I have to go back and format them right.
Another tip? Save all your stories as ASCII files...alot of email submissions, or online submission forms play havoc with those purty curly quotes and apostrophes. Also save them as RTF files. All my ready to be sent out short stories are in three flavors....wps, necause I use works, .rtf, so I can attach my stories to emails for those who accept it, and .txt.
I also do a silly thing when I format each story...when they're all ready, I've been saving them, then decking them out really pretty with nice title fonts, drop caps, etc...which I then print for myself. I don't keep these results on the computer, since I would never send them this way to a publisher. That would scream newbie all over, and I'd rather like to trick them into thinking I'm not. :)
So, my advice: Keep really good records. Really study out the guidlines, webpages, even copies of the magazines if you can get a hold of them to see if your story will fit. Have a hardcopy for yourself. I see hunting for a market the same way a archer hunts for prey...I watch, I wait, I study, I aim with care, and I conserve my arrows.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 9:45 PM
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Tuesday, January 06, 2004www.thewritersroommagazine.com has a couple of contests that may interest someone...I won't be entering, because I hate to spend the money. :)
CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOK CONTEST
We accept children’s picture books in any genre/theme. Only published books can enter. We both accept books published as hardcopy and e-books. By submission, follow the entry instructions below and send your book as an attached .PDF (preferred) or .HTML file. Books must contain pictures/illustrations for proper judgement. We only receive payment via Paypal. Entry Fee: $15. Prizes: 1st place: $100, 2nd place: $50, 3rd-5th place: Honorable mention (certificate)
Deadline: February 1st , 2004
Besides the prize all winners will receive a certificate via regular mail. The winners will participate in an exclusive interview, review (with photo of author (optional), cover, links to author’s website and email address) which will be featured in The Writer's Room Magazine.
Learn more here: http://www.thewritersroommagazine.net/childbookcontest.htm
ESSAY CONTEST - MY LIFE AS A WRITER
We accept essays on the topic: “My life as a writer”. You are allowed to have your own title for your entry. Your essay must feature one or more of the following terms: How is your writing life? What do you struggle with concerning writing/publishing? How do other people look at you? What makes you sad in this business? What makes you laugh? Writer’s block? How successful do you feel you are? Have you wanted to give up? Can you live without writing? Your essay can be happy, sad, funny, devastating etc. Anything that brings emotions from your personal experience to the reader and can be identified by other writers. Entry Fee: $10. Prizes: 1st place/Grand prize: $100, 2nd – 5th place: Honorable mention (certificate)
Deadline: February 1st, 2004. Learn more here: http://www.thewritersroommagazine.net/essaycontest.htm
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 5:59 PM
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Sunday, January 04, 2004OK. My comic book section is now finished. :-D You can click on comics in the flash menu to the right, or here. It's how I'm going to set up all my pages...each section will have a flash bar at the top so that you can hop to any genre at any time, including a link directly back to the genre you're exploring. The navagation buttons at the bottom of the page will allow you to go to the next or previous review. The center mouse over buttom will lot you go back to the genre page...meaning if you're in comics, you'll go back to comics main page, and the little house will take you right back to here. I did it this way so that, hopefully, it'll be really, really easy to navigate no matter what your platform, and I reuse the same buttons all the time so that they will load really fast after the first time.
The fantasy section may be next, but it'll be a beast. So will mystery. I reviewed 466 all together. Most of those reviews will be posted. Since I reviewed an even 200 last year...yup, 266. And last year I said I'd try and review *less*.
The Works section has finally propigated, or whatever, so it's showing up now. It's purty. :-)
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 1:36 PM
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I should have said that there were three of us...my parents and I, taking care of things. I guess greif makes us self centered as well as melodramatic.
I've showered, and all my clothes, my boots, my winter coat are laying in a soggy, half heartedly hung up mess to be washed tomorrow. I feel good. harlan Ellison said that more than fifteen minutes of real grief was self indulgance, and I prefer my self indulgance to be of the Cola and chocholate kind. I;'m not saying I'm all better, but I am saying that this is my last word, I think, on the subject.
My only fear is that some well meaning person will try and give me a dog. I'm praying very hard that no one will try and give me one. I've never not had a dog...and I've never choosen my own dog, and I want some time off.
OK. Sean Bean movies to watch. Chocholate to be eaten. Weight to be regained.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 12:09 PM
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Last night I dreamt that a chicken had hatched chicks in the woods behind out house. My mother said if we didn’t catch them and raise them they’d be wild, and we’d never know where their eggs were. So I went out to catch them. One was gray and still, dead, mutated. Another became a hawk and flew out of my hands. The third became a Siamese Cat, and I obsessed over where to put her, because I didn’t know what kind of eggs she’d lay.
What does it all mean? I don’t know.
What I do know is this: That Nia was very, very heavy when I took her out of her house this last time. I wonder why the dead are so heavy. Is it because the soul bears us up? Or was she bearing the weight of my heart, so that I could do my job?
The last time a dog died, a friend said that he went to a better place. She’s out of the state, and not here to tell me this again, and so I say it for her.
The ground was not frozen. It rained the whole time and it rains still. This is not poetry, but truth.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 10:55 AM
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No more pretty lights...
Saturday, January 03, 2004So, today was spent taking down and putting away the decorations. All the lights are away, now, and everything is back to the dull and proper of before. The best parts of the year always fly by.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 6:30 PM
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It's time once more to vote in the Preditors and Editors poll. I'm not up for anything this year (sniff) but my friend Denise Fliescher, who wrote The Guardian, is. So's Neil Gaiman, and Fiction Addiction.
I love this poll because by looking at the voting results, you can get an idea of the best rescources out there....
http://www.critters.org/predpoll/
And for the Another Realm page, a fabulous writer's source: http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 6:15 PM
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Friday, January 02, 2004It's about time I stopped pretending and embraced my life style choice. Yes, I'm coming out, on my bog. I am...a hermit.
There's no use trying to fence words or pretty it up. I am a hermit, but with better body-care habits. So, I'm a Yardly's rose smelling hermit.
And you know, when you see hermits on the Telly, people always say things like, "I'd go crazy, being a hermit and staying all hide bound in the middle of no where, rarely seeing people." But you know, it's easy. The longer you do it, the easier it gets. Now it's an effort to go out to the movies, or go shopping. And I tend to really dress up, as if it's an occasion. Eyeing my red velvet dress and Emma Peel boots, the girl at the local grocery store asked me, "what's the occasion?"
"Breathing." I said, demonstrating with a deep breath that I let out with a sigh and a smile.
And I've forgotten how to disemble. See, disembling is an art that I once was a queen of. You could ask me an opinion about something, and unless it was life and death or something that would end up being horrobly embarrasing, (at which time I'd save you) I'd say something so bland and nice that you'd have an impression that I'd actually told you what I thought and better yet, it agreed precisly with your thoughts on the subject. Now I have no clue. I find myself blurting things out before they ar even formed. A few weeks back, trying to convince my friend that I really *did* want red hair but I was dying it close to my own brown color, I said that Brown was the worst hair color in the world. Which, if they didn't all love me, or at least know me enough to put up with me, would have insulted every single person in the car.
And probably most of the people who read this blogger. Seriously, I think brown hair is nice. I like my hair color, and try to preserve it while removing the worse of the grey. But you see what I'm saying.
I would rather be a hermit, in some ways. I love being able to write, to dream, to try and live a life different from what I know I'll have if I give into temptation and give up. And I have all of you, really, so what else does a hermit need?
In the mail, five minutes ago, I recieved The Voice of Fire by Alan Moore and Alex Robinson's BOP! I didn't request them, but I can't wait to read them. The publisher is really a sweetie. And, Top Shelf Productions publishes some of *the* finest books in the world.
And, for no reason other than I feel like saying it:
Do not be ashamed when you fixate on a person or a charcater -- as long as you realize it's just smoke and time passing it's ok. We all need things to fixate on, charcaters for our dreams.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 3:22 PM
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Thursday, January 01, 2004Oh! (sees comment below) Thank you Susan, you're very sweet.
(I often comment after the comments...but I wanted to make sure. Your kind words mean a lot.)
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 8:08 PM
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One of the great creative tragedies in the history of film making was what happened to The Night of the Hunter. Charles laughton directed this gorgues, dark thriller, and robert Mitchum starred. (You know when you see love written on the knuckles of one hand, hate on the other? Robert Mitchum's charcater, I think, started that.) Laughton uses shadow and light to create some of the most lovely and eerie scenes, and the portrayls of the people are incredibly provoking. Sometimes it's a little old fashiondly sweet...but it's a movie that really captures a time as well as a feeling. Yet, when it came out, critics and audiences a like ignored it. Thus my tragedy...Charles Laughton thought he'd failed completely, and never directed another movie. Imagine what he would have done, with what he learned during this movie, and applied it to another. He was a genius.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 8:05 PM
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I have decided this site needs a new template. The current one smushes the type too small...I'm hoping to serialize a few short stories into my blog, and I want people to actually be able to *read* what I'm saying.
I've got the comic book review section nearly done. I did it first because it's the shortest. ;)
I'm watching the Rose Bowl Parade, because I love horses. I had a horse, and I can tell you that really, the best kind of horse is usually other people's horses. Sincerely. And I have the scars and the get me drunk and I'll tell you stories to prove it.
Oh, COOL! There's a dragon and a castle on the parade!
I love dragons and castles. Did you know that?
And I watched this show last night...something about "Wildest moments on TV" or something. I wasn't watching it very close. But a news caster was interviewing people, I guess, and he asked this woman if her hat was her secret to staying warm. And she said something like..."No, I'm angry. I want an independant income and I want to get laid...often and well."
And I thought,. "That's absolutely brillant."
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 12:25 PM
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"If I ever say anything that disturbs you," she says, as she decides how to reply to an email she got this morning, "Just remeber. Neil Gaiman says writers are liars. Just remeber that, perhaps, and that will make you feel better."
Now to stop quoting myself. If I am not lying about my last post, then you'll be happy to know that I've managed to get Nia to eat. She's not in pain, she's just...fading. And there are other things I want to say, but i'm going to make a new post. I'm doing this partially because as I told a freind the pother night, real sentiment makes me uncomfortable. That sounds funny, but it's true...i know what to do, with false sentiment. I'm hoping to push this post off the screen.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 12:18 PM
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