tor.com on Steampunk Tales — In which I have a story.
How to tell a riveting story — (Thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) goulo.)
Toy ray guns of the world
Portable DNA Purifier for Poor Countries — A new handheld device isolates DNA from human fluid without the use of electrical power. Like Bill Gibson said, you have "to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to crudeness".
Hemingway as failed KGB spy? — Weird.
A Housing Market Built on Mud Takes Off, and Then Goes Thud — Ironic, sad and darkly funny story about housing in West Africa.
The invisible hand of god — Pace Adam Smith. (Snurched from Scrivener's Error.)
Hannity again crops Obama's comments abroad in order to smear him — Your Liberal Media, hard at work bending the truth for the GOP. And conservatives wonder why the rest of us see you as crazy and deceitful. Hannity isn't some fringe figure, he's a major spokesperson for your philosophy with an audience of millions.
?otD: What would Heinlein have titled a sequel to Friday?
7/10/2009 Body movement: n/a (overslept due to ongoing chest cold) This morning's weigh-in: n/a (no scale at beach house) Currently reading: The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold
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Even amidst it all, I managed 1,300 words today (to my amazement). Might make goal this week after all. Too tired to sort out a WIP.
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I've had some things to say about cancer, about health insurance, about Endurance, but this chest cold is running me ragged and having me sleep 11 hours a day. Regular blogging service will resume as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, calendula_witch finished a book. Go give her some love.
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The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks — The name says it all. (Thanks to corwynofamber.)
10 weird uses for vodka — (Thanks to garyomaha.)
First Drug Shown to Extend Life Span in Mammals
LRO won't convince the Apollo deniers — Apollo denial is just as mentally fractured as Intelligent Design, supply side economics or vaccination denial — batshit faith-based thinking pretending to a rational basis. It just doesn't have the same massive policy implications, and nobody dies from it.
?otD: Why do we call it a 'cold' when it makes us hot?
7/9/2009 Body movement: n/a (overslept due to ongoing chest cold) This morning's weigh-in: n/a (no scale at beach house) Currently reading: n/a (Just finished The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold (re-read))
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4,900 words today, across two hours, to 100,500 words on the manuscript. Right now I think this is going to come up considerably shorter than earlier estimates. Maybe 120,000 or so. I'm a bit surprised. Possibly Fred has learned to write to length, or possibly I'll have to insert stuff on rewrite. That's fine. Every book is different. But my last few have been dreadfully overlength, and I've kind of gotten used to very fat drafts.
Go figure.
Meanwhile, ( wip! )
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Proof that life goes on despite high drama and low...I seem to be coming down with a chest cold. I spent much of yesterday being vaguely stupid and inefficient, while my voice croaked. Also exhausted. Tumbled into bed early last night, overslept by two hours, missed my exercise, and have that raw feeling in my throat today. Grr.
Too much to do, too little time.
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Coffee 'may reverse Alzheimer's' — Guess I need to take up a new habit. (Thanks to danjite.)
Vintage ads for women's fragrances — Uh huh.
Donnie's Deusie: 1924 — Mmm. Duesenberg. Mmm.
Best to only ever fight wars you already won. — The Edge of the American West on conservatives, Obama and library cards. Also William Ayers. Funny stuff.
?otD: What time did you wake up?
7/8/2009 Body movement: n/a (overslept due to incipient chest cold) This morning's weigh-in: n/a (no scale at beach house) Currently reading: The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold (re-read)
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I think it is teh awesome! Artwork by Mari Kurisato.
Avatar © 2009 Mari Kurisato.
Original photo © 2009 B. Lake.
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3,700 new words on Endurance today, in 90 minutes of writing time.
( As usual, a WIP )
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| 2009-07-07 04:58 |
| [links] Link salad yawns into another Tuesday |
| Public |
| books, cool, green, health, links, personal, politics, publishing, religion, reviews, science, travel, videos |
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An interesting review of Green [ Powell's | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Borders ]
A "dumb copy editor" story from George Lakoff — Don't get me wrong. Copy editors are my friends, both figuratively and literally. But this is hilarious.
The Astronomer's Dream — A short animated film.
The blue and the green — Awesome color spiral illusion... (Thanks to willyumtx.)
Fixing airport security
Blinded Man Regains Sight With Tooth For Eye — Um... (Thanks to tetar.)
A Pound of Cure — The federal government is about to spend big on health-care IT. Too bad the medical industry has a vested interest in inefficiency. I find the viewpoint of this article overly cynical, but some interesting stuff here nonetheless.
Arizona is 6000 years old? — Pssst. Hey. Conservative America. Listen up. Religion doesn't have to make you stupid.
What The Right Means When They Say "America"
?otD: How many roads must a man walk down? Show your work.
7/7/2009 Body movement: 40 minute beach walk, 10 minutes of stretching and meditation This morning's weigh-in: n/a (no scale at beach house) Currently reading: The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold (re-read)
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calendula_witch's brother, with the bee stinger carefully pulled from his hand. He was stung while playing darts, dropped the dart, tried reflexively to catch it, and stabbed himself in the hand several times during the resulting mayhem.
She sure knows how to show me a good time.
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4,400 words in two hours today over three sessions. I lost 1,100 words mid-session due to a series of errors, or it would have been a 5,500 word day. Grr. And writing the same scenes twice in a row is really not my favorite thing to do. Book's at 91,900 words now.
( Some WIP for youse guys )
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My world's starting to get narrower as I approach chemo. I remember this exact same effect taking place in the context of last year's surgery. The prescribing consult will be on 7/27, with various things to happen thereafter, such as installing the port in my chest and scheduling the infusions.
My sense as I go through various activities runs along the lines of well, this is the last time I'll do this for a while. Also, my underlying fear of dying from this whole experience has kicked back up. (Not like the mortality statistics are exactly uplifting at the moment anyway.) So sometimes I find myself thinking well, I may never do this again.
It's not that my fundamental optimism has faded, nor my energy and drive. This is like a layer of fear lacquered over that. The Fear, perhaps, spread micron thin and contaminating everything. A reaction to the increasing inevitability of this process. I'm still a bit abstracted from my core emotions, and spending the past two weeks with calendula_witch has helped a lot. We'll see what flows next. It ain't easy.
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bravado111 with a photo spread on Green [ Powell's | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Borders ] — Heh.
Flags of forgotten countries — Dark Roasted Blend with one for the vexillologists among you. Actually, I remember most of these countries.
Igniting Fusion — Mmm, warm.
Centauri Dreams with a roundup — I draw your attention to the subsection entitled "Superluminal Radio Waves and their Uses", in turn referring to this article. Paging Sam L. Tannaity to the office. I'm just a poor little low-rent SF writer with a liberal arts degree, so maybe it's just me, but I'm really struggling with this one. Comments from the better informed?
?otD: How long is Long Beach?
7/6/2009 Body movement: n/a (will beach walk later) This morning's weigh-in: n/a (no scale at beach house) Currently reading: n/a (just finished P.S. Your Cat is Dead by James Kirkwood)
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Days 20 and 21 were lost to our grand adventures in Points North. Day 22 today yielded only a disappointed 2,100 words in an hour of effort. However, under my new weekly rubric, that makes 21,600 words for the week, well in excess of my 17,500 word target. I'm now at 87,500 words. Given that chemo shouldn't start before early August, I'm confident of getting this draft wrapped before cancer eats my brain.
( In the mean time, a bit of WIP: )
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calendula_witch ably describes our weekend at Points North amongst her family and the fields of her youth. A marvelous time was had by all, albeit somewhat intense. I took a number of photos, but have just discovered I have the wrong card reader with me tonight, so they will remain inaccessible a while longer.
My day consisted of starting in Mendocino County, CA, being driven down to SFO by calendula_witch, flying to PDX, being met by the_child and tillyjane in the Genre car, dropping tillyjane off at her place, then driving to Pacific County, WA to my parents' beach house. So, erm, 5+ hours in the car and 3+ hours in airport and airplanes. Whew.
Beach house for a week (working the Day Jobbe from here as well as forging ahead on Endurance), then Omaha, then back to San Francisco and calendula_witch on the 17th.
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calendula_witch and I are heading for Points North in a few minutes. This is where I get to meet the family. I have promised not to wear my underpants on my head this time. I will be partially or fully offline through Sunday night, so further updates will be irregular at best. Writing time may also be at a premium, but as I've already met the week's goal, that should be cause for only minimal alarm.
In other news, my mom is fine. ER visit was a false alarm.
In other other news, the inside of my head is a complicated, scary place cancer-wise, with the chemo train now building up a head of steam at the platform. When I understand myself a little better, I'll talk about the emotional process, as I do. For now I'm happy to love and be loved and have a distracting, still-healthy weekend.
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maryrobinette is liking of the Green [ Powell's | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Borders ].
newroticgirl liked Green maybe a bit too much
Moving the goalposts — My last Tor.com guest blog post from the recent run.
Carnivorous Clock eats bugs, begins doomsday countdown — Brings a whole new meaning to the idea of a "mainspring". (Thanks to lillypond.)
The danger of safety — Road, rail and air crash comparisons.
?otD: Where is Mendocino County again?
7/3/2009 Body movement: 60 minute urban walk (Buena Vista Park and back) This morning's weigh-in: n/a (forgot to get on the scale before I showered and ate) Currently reading: P.S. Your Cat is Dead by James Kirkwood
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More news today from my oncologist. Unless something crops up to contraindicate, we're committing to chemo. This is based on the MRI results, and her further discussions with my cancer surgeon about my case.
I have some followups in San Francisco the week of 7/20, including further imaging studies of the various sites, and a full chest imaging to evaluate the lung spot and see if there are more lung spots.
I meet with my Portland oncologist on 7/27 to formally prescribe the chemotherapy. On 7/29 I have the chemotherapy orientation class. Sometime thereafter (as yet unscheduled) I will have the port put in — I'll be a Harkonnen! — then commence a six month course, with a break at midpoint for evaluation through further imaging studies.
So sometime in early August I'll be entering the magical land of chemo. This makes WorldCon very iffy, though we'll look at scheduling issues. I'm not going to delay treatment just for the sake of a Con trip, but if it all fits together, that can be my hurrah. I am probably good for all commitments before then. On the plus side, I can probably get the first draft of Endurance wrapped before the killjuice starts melting my brain.
In other news, my mom is in the ER in Portland tonight with a blood clotting issue which is not particularly serious now but needs to be addressed before it becomes serious. I, of course, am in San Francisco, and my sister is at the Washington coast.
Never rains but it pours around here.
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