Barbara J Webb

A Blessing of Monsters has been retitled. Big surprise, right? There’s no way I’d be able to keep that title. Anyway, the new title is: Epic Fantasy With No Dull Parts.

That’s unlikely to be the final title, either, I know. Titles are hard.

Mirrored from Twenty Palaces. You can comment here or there.

Let me drop this quick quote on you from a Writer Beware post:

The most financially successful self-publishers write more than their peers, and spend less time marketing. In fact, those self-publishers who marketed the most earned the least.

Authors’ online activity: Mostly good for having fun and maybe letting people know when something new comes out once in a while.

Mirrored from Twenty Palaces. You can comment here or there.

Am pleased and proud to announce that I’ve been accepted into Launch Pad this year.

For those who don’t know, Launch Pad is a NASA-funded astronomy workshop for writers, held on the University of Wyoming campus in Laramie.  You can well imagine how valuable something like that would be to a science fiction writer and geek.  I mean, I’ll even get telescope time.  Dude.

Let me tell you, this is not an easy gig to get.  I’m thrilled and honored to be studying with these fine folks.

Please permit me a small woo-hoo!

So.  What are you doing this summer?

ETA: The one downside to all this that Launch Pad conflicts with OSFest.  I wish it weren’t so, but there’s no getting around it.  To those who are attending, have a great time, and I’m sorry I won’t be there with you.

I named a character once in The Bone Palace, an offhand reference that didn't warrant an entry in the dramatis personae but is still in print. Now I find myself needing to write more about that character and a) not liking his name much anymore, and b) finding it a bit too similar to someone else who shows up quite often. How many of you would be wildly irritated if I changed someone's name between books? (I doubt most people even remember that he was ever mentioned, but somewhere out there is the reader who will.)

SFWA is looking to convene a Norton jury for the 2013 award.

The Norton Award is presented to young adult or middle grade science fiction and fantasy novels. The membership at large votes to place several works on the ballot which the Norton jury can augment with additional selections.

Interested volunteers should contact the office of the vice president at vp@sfwa.org.

Please include your name and email address as well as a sentence or two about the following:

1) Your experience (if any) as a reader or writer of young adult and/or middle grade fiction.

2) Your interest in serving as a juror for this award.

Volunteer applications should be sent by Friday, June 8.

Volunteers must be active SFWA members. Feel free to repost.

Mirrored from SFWA | Comment at SFWA

Oh look! Links.

- Ann and Jeff VanderMeer have a Kickstarted to fund a feminist specfic antho. Only a few days left, but this looks like a cool project.

- The people of North Carolina are seemingly on a roll this season, what with the ban on same-sex anything and all civil unions, the pastor who wants to enclose all the LGBTQ people in an electric fence, and now this: a newspaper giving the front page to a KKK rally. The mind reels.

- Whoa. I want Alduin's Wall in my office.

- Paper pencils!

This post has been mirrored from Christian A. Young's Dimlight Archive. To see it in its original format, visit dimlightarchive.com

I’ve been quiet here as I’ve been slogging through the usual Seasonal Depression, but I did post two essays over at FetLife (TheFacebookforkinksters) that you may be curious about:  “Depression. Fucking. Depression.”, which deals with how depression affects my sex life, and “Ropeweasels,” which deals with the issue of me being tied up. (There’s also “Fireplay and Me,” an oddly poetic musing on setting women aflame, which I don’t think I linked here but maybe I did.)

In addition, my humor essay “So I’m Going To Become A Dom” may be my most popular essay ever, with 612 comments and 965 loves.  I guess it’s all about the specificity.

Cross-posted from Ferrett's Real Blog.

This entry has also been posted at http://theferrett.dreamwidth.org/214628.html. You can comment here, or comment there; makes no never-mind by me.

Back in The Day, when I had infinite people reading me on LiveJournal, I’d post an entry and the comments exploded.  I’d hit “post,” and five minutes later I’d have fifteen comments.

Now, I make a big ol’ important post and sometimes I don’t get a comment for half an hour.  That used to unnerve me – is this a bad entry? Did I say something wrong? – until I realized what was happening.  English LiveJournal is slowly dying.

What used to happen was that the LJ friends page was like Twitter or Facebook now – so constant a stream of data that you just refreshed your friends’ page and wham, new entries.  Maybe you didn’t check it twenty times a day like I did, but the friends page was a ritual where my latest entry popped up in real time.  I was a part of the info-stream.

As LJ use has declined, though, the traffic patterns have changed for me.  People no longer read my blog as part of a daily pulse; it’s in their RSS feeds, or bookmarked separately, or they wait for me to post the interesting links to Twitter (since I don’t Tweet-spam every post).  I still get roughly the same number of comments, but as opposed to arriving in one explosive comment-dump, they now arrive scattered over the course of two days, like late passengers departing a red-eye connection.  I’m read at their convenience, not the convenience of LJ.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is a little weird.  Some days I post a SRS ENTRY and then wait until I get one comment just to ensure someone’s listening.  By the time I get out of the tub, I have like three comments, which used to be the sign of an entry falling on its face.  Now, I’m patient; the user feedback will arrive in due course.

If you write it, they will come.

Cross-posted from Ferrett's Real Blog.

This entry has also been posted at http://theferrett.dreamwidth.org/214409.html. You can comment here, or comment there; makes no never-mind by me.

Þæt, as they say, wæs god concert. We had great seats, the pyrotechnics were gorgeous--and hot*--and the set list was very nice, even if I would rather have heard "Rosenrot" than "Bück Dich." We had to miss the last encore to get home to the babysitter--the opening whistle of "Engel" chased us into the parking lot, and I'm not sure what they played next. I got to see "Haifisch," though, which I love unreasonably.

They played "Ohne Dich" and it was quite nice, but I'm afraid Laibach did to that song what Johnny Cash did to "Hurt." They'll never top that cover.

That's another concert off my life list. Having seen Leonard Cohen and Concrete Blonde, and given up on Siouxsie or the Creatures, the list is getting short. It would be nice to see Laibach. The rest would need a time machine.



* Not unlike many members of the band.**

** But Till, honey, the reason you can't get laid in Germany is because German women understand your lyrics.

I've been suffering apathy regarding my garden this year. After 1)all the damage the dogs have done, and b)spring going straight to summer, I'm just having trouble getting myself out there to work in the yard.

The chrysanthemums are already blooming.

OK, the gardeners here will know that's weird for early May. My irises are already shot, and the Texas Lilacs (vitex) are setting blooms now rather than in August. That means the rest of the summer will be mostly bloom-free. I understand why the plants are doing this, but it does freak me out.

______________

Allergies and lack of Diet Coke are also taking a toll. Because of the humidity this year, mold is way up....and that's the primary thing that triggers my allergies. Since I've been working on cutting it back to NO MORE than 1 Diet Coke per day, my caffeine balance has been off. Between the allergies, hormones, and caffeine troubles, I'm having sinus headaches. Not congestion (so don't bother to suggest a neti pot), but swelling. I try not to overdo the sudafed, but it's been necessary...

______________

I've been re-reading Dreaming Death, as I'm contemplating whether to re-write it or not. So I'm not getting wordcount.

Shironne is fun to write. I really do hope I sell this novel one day. ;o)