Randomness for 8/8

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1) The alphabet, carved on the tips of pencils.

2) Kanye West Tweets combined with New Yorker cartoons. It’s not exactly Nietzsche Family Circus, but, um…

3) I don’t even know what to say about this news story. My initial shock at reading it has lessened as I realize this sort of thing isn’t unusual. It wouldn’t be newsworthy at all if not for the Facebook connection.

4) What a bestseller’s marketing push looks like. Someday, this will be me.

5) Amazing Lego Animation. Not for some technical razzle dazzle, but because it is so simply shot and effective. Video

6) It’s hard to believe this isn’t partly cgi in post, but this is a 3D projection onto a building, and it’s mindblowing. Video.

7) “But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave.” A New York high school valedictorian delivers a controversial speech against the public school system in which she excelled.

Announcing a month of book giveaways! Day 8

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Game of Cages will be coming out on the last day of the month, so I’ve decided to hold a special month of book giveaways. Every day (unless I screw up, which I probably will) I’ll give away a book or themed set of books to someone who asks for it. To enter, you have to comment on this blog or on my LiveJournal–email, Facebook, and Twitter won’t count, and if more than one person speaks up, I’ll roll a die to determine the recipient. U.S. residents only, please.

You get a new book every day, and on the last day of the month I’ll give away my own.

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Songbooks! Folk music! Burl Ives! I don’t like any of it (except Burl Ives–I’m not a monster) but would you like it? Just leave a comment letting me know.

Update: These books have been won.

Announcing a month of book giveaways! Day seven

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Game of Cages will be coming out on the last day of the month, so I’ve decided to hold a special month of book giveaways. Every day (unless I screw up, which I probably will) I’ll give away a book or themed set of books to someone who asks for it. To enter, you have to comment on this blog or on my LiveJournal–email, Facebook, and Twitter won’t count, and if more than one person speaks up, I’ll roll a die to determine the recipient. U.S. residents only, please.

You get a new book every day, and on the last day of the month I’ll give away my own.

Today’s book:

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This is old-school horror, and while it’s been a while since I read it, I remember it as pretty damn scary (but not gross–I hate gross). Want to give it a read?

Update: This item has been won.

Announcing a month of book giveaways! Day six

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Game of Cages will be coming out on the last day of the month, so I’ve decided to hold a special month of book giveaways. Every day (unless I screw up, which I probably will) I’ll give away a book or themed set of books to someone who asks for it. To enter, you have to comment on this blog or on my LiveJournal–email, Facebook, and Twitter won’t count, and if more than one person speaks up, I’ll roll a die to determine the recipient. U.S. residents only, please.

You get a new book every day, and on the last day of the month I’ll give away my own.

Today’s book:

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I read this book. It’s well-written, but I barely remember anything about it. Are you a fan of her work? Want to give it a try?

Update: This item has been won.

Dear Day: Whoa.

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Today was tough. Day job was crazy–one of the clinics had a fire the night before. No one was hurt, but the doc in charge decided they would open to see patients anyway, never mind the ten foot hole in the roof or the fumes in every room that made people’s skin sticky.

They closed eventually, and will be closed for several days, but there were a lot of patients to call and reschedule. Yes, the phones have been crazy.

Also, I went to be early last night, woke up early, and started writing early. Sekrit Project 1 is nearly done–with luck, I’ll finish tomorrow and move on to the essays and interviews I have to do.

I’m still at skip=90 on LJ and I’ve barely looked at Twitter today. The book giveaway posts are already written and scheduled (for this week, at least) and the first book (the Pagels book about Satan) has been won. Tonight I’ll roll a die for Thieve’s Kitchen.

And now it’s time to catch a bus home. Supposedly, traffic accidents have blocked part of my neighborhood–I’m not sure the buses will be running. The Blue Angels have been buzzing downtown all day, so I’m planning to look up as I walk to my bus stop.

Oh, and have I mentioned that I have an ARC of DREADNOUGHT (Cherie Priest’s sequel to BONESHAKER) in my greedy little hands? I haven’t? Well, now you know to be jealous.

I’m off for home. Hope everyone has had a fantastic day.

Announcing a month of book giveaways! Day five

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Game of Cages will be coming out on the last day of the month, so I’ve decided to hold a special month of book giveaways. Every day (unless I screw up, which I probably will) I’ll give away a book or themed set of books to someone who asks for it. To enter, you have to comment on this blog or on my LiveJournal–email, Facebook, and Twitter won’t count, and if more than one person speaks up, I’ll roll a die to determine the recipient. U.S. residents only, please.

You get a new book every day, and on the last day of the month I’ll give away my own.

Today’s book:

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Yep, it’s a book about Jewish gangsters. No, I haven’t read it. Do you want to?

Update: this book has been won.

Bullet points make a post

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* ‘Sfunny, when I’m writing a first draft, I sit down for a specific time to write, and when I’m done for the day I’m done. When I’m doing a polish, it’s like an all-day thing. I keep dropping back into the file, reading a few lines, tweaking sentences. It’s kinda annoying, especially since it makes me feel as though I’m not accomplishing anything.

* Yesterday I got word that my Russian language rights money was on its way. Hooray! I’m really looking forward to posting scans of the foreign language translations of my books.

* I’ve decided to wait 3 days (or 24+ hours of inactivity) before announcing the winners of the book giveaways. I’ll roll a die for the first one tonight, maybe the second, depending. Also, I’ll announce it when someone has won.

* I have a couple Sekrit Projects to work on. Those are nicer than my public projects, because I enjoy them just as much but you, blog reader, don’t have to listen to my complaints.

* I have a bunch of interviews and essays to write. If I owe you one, don’t worry I haven’t forgotten. I have an SP to breeze through and then I’ll be all over it.

* Thank you, Judge Walker. The ruling still needs to go through the 9th District and Supreme Court, but this is the right step.

* I’ve been contemplating a post about all the ways the Obama administration has disappointed me, but honestly, I have better things to do. I knew the administration would disappoint me when I voted for him, but I didn’t anticipate the manner.

And just how busy do I have to get before I accept that I’m honestly busy? My LJ friends list is currently at skip=120, and that’s only after a day of dedicated downtime-at-day-job reading. Really, Obama can wait.

* It’s now less than 4 weeks until the publication of Game of Cages, and I feel sick. There’s so much to do and (seemingly) so much at stake and the economy is still in the crapper and I may be laid off from my day job and I may have to stay at this day job and I’m not sure which is worse and I just want to stand up, go home, take a shower and go to sleep for a very, very long time.

But other than that everything’s great.

Mutual Combat

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First, the meathead ordinance has passed. Essentially, this means that officers could ticket people who are shouting, fighting, whatever as they leave a closing bar. This is good news for us, since we live in a very quiet neighborhood that has one bar nearby. People spill out of the bar singing and squabbling way too often. The city could balance their budgets on the backs of these fools.

What really caught my eye about this was this sentence in the article: “Fighting, or ‘mutual combat’ — where two parties punch and kick each other but don’t harm anyone else or cause property damage — isn’t currently against the law.”

To which I say “REALLY?” I have a hard time accepting that. The police wouldn’t arrest two dudes slugging it out in an alley as long as they didn’t break anything else, accidentally punch a bystander, or scream too loud?

Seattle: still hanging on to its frontier heritage.

Announcing a month of book giveaways! Day four

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Game of Cages will be coming out on the last day of the month, so I’ve decided to hold a special month of book giveaways. Every day (unless I screw up, which I probably will) I’ll give away a book or themed set of books to someone who asks for it. To enter, you have to comment on this blog or on my LiveJournal–email, Facebook, and Twitter won’t count, and if more than one person speaks up, I’ll roll a die to determine the recipient. U.S. residents only, please.

You get a new book every day, and on the last day of the month I’ll give away my own.

Here are today’s books:

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The book on the left is the sequel to the book on the right. They’re detective/thrillers, and the protagonist is pretty much the maskless version of Batman–she’s good at pretty much everything and more than a little crazy. In book one she hunts and art thief and killer and falls for the woman she’s supposed to protect. In the sequel… well, I didn’t read it. My favorite part of book one was the travelogue of the couple’s visit to Norway, and that left me cold for the second one.

However, I’m a fussy, idiosyncratic reader (unlike everyone else, ‘natch) so maybe you would like them! Speak up!

Update: These have been won.

Randomness for 8/3

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1) Invisibility gets closer to reality.

2) The URL says it all: http://writershouses.com/

3) Thinking of becoming a literary agent?

4) Michelle Sagara on authors meeting readers who have not read the author’s work. I have never worked in a bookstore and have no idea how to rec books, but the rest matches my thoughts very closely.

5) Glory, Glory, Howl-le-lu-ya!. This is hilarious and weird. Do you love Jesus? Well that’s fine. Do you feel moved to do *this* and post it online? Dude. Seriously. via Robin Bailey

6) Don’t be that guy. For anyone who wonders why comics are so ridiculously sexist.

7) The Nietzsche Family Circus