life is great!

No writing today

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Shit. I went to the Starbucks across the street from day job, sat down with my laptop and coffee, and promptly spilled the whole thing over the table. Spirit Gate by Kate Elliott is soaked through and my computer kept flashing to a white screen.

I say again: Shit.

Now I’m sitting at my desk at the day job, with computer and book resting on the air conditioning vent beside me, drying out. ::fingers crossed:: Instead, I guess I’ll work on some of the publicity stuff I’m supposed to whip up by the end of the month, and thinkerate on the characters and plot.

This makes me happy

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Remember a couple days back when I said my wife was painting behind me? Well, she has a commission. It’s not finished, but I’m estatic to see her working on it.

IMG_0204

Oh, and I fixed WordPress. I even got rid of those faint gray links.

I broke my theme

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I’ll upload a new, functional theme later.

Like I have time for this…

ETA: Fixed it.

Today

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I’m not around much today. I’ve taken a break from my daily goal to get a cup of coffee and skim my friends list, when I found this.

My wife is sitting behind me, working on her latest canvas. It’s a good life.

Finally! It can be announced!

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I can finally release the news that the first of the merchandising deals for my Twenty Palaces novels has been finalized. Here’s some initial concept art for the Child of Fire Lego kit, due to hit toystores in October, a couple weeks after the paperback publish date.

Child of Fire Cover Lego Version

I can’t wait to see how they create the sapphire dog.
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You guys know I’m just joshin’, right? This image (and more complicated ones, too) created with the Lego Digital Designer. Use the program to design a virtual Lego model, then upload it to their site (if you want) and order the pieces and instructions mailed to you.

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Wichita doctor shot while attending church in probable terrorist attack.

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Fun! When Sonia Sotomayor states that a Latina would have more experience with discrimination than a white male and would probably reach a better ruling on a discrimination case, she’s called a racist. Who called her that? Rush “Take the bone out of your nose and call me back” Limbaugh and Newt “[bilingual education is teaching] the language of living in a ghetto” Gingrich. John Ridley (a guy I rarely agree with) puts it very neatly: “Newt, seriously, anytime you want to swap racisms give me a call.”

America: still shamefully fucked up.

A link for you:

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Scratch.

What is it, you ask? It’s a free, simple, entry-level animation program that allows anyone (although it was designed for kids) create short videos, games, or whatever else you want.

The program was designed at M.I.T. to give young people the ability to create their own media. I myself am not “young” by any stretch of the imagination but I downloaded it (for my, um, son. Yeah, that’s right. My son.) and found it surprisingly easy to use.

If you’ve ever wanted to make your own goofy videos or games, check it out.

Sun!

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It is gorgeous and sunny right now. I’m sitting by the huge window at the library, thinking about the next step in Man Bites World.

When I came back to it a week ago, I jumped to about the 6K word mark, hit enter a bunch of times, and started writing a sequence that I’d been putting off but that really needed to be early early early. I wanted to keep it down to about twenty five hundred words, but it’s actually a little more than double that, because I can never seem to judge how much space and detail each plot beat needs. Hopefully, that will improve.

Still, the sequence has a great deal of suck in it. I know what’s wrong, but not specifically how to fix it. I’ll make a couple quick notes to myself, jump to the end of the draft, (which is now nearly 40K words) and push on from there.

Which means I won’t hit my new word goal for today. Ah well. I’ve reviewed the rest of the draft, changing things to accommodate the new section, so maybe that counts. Or maybe I should do a few hundred more words.

In other news, my buddy received his copy of Child of Fire yesterday, and so far he likes it. I’ll be calling him in a couple hours to coordinate travel plans for San Diego Comic-Con.

The organic open air farmer’s market started their season today. There are many more lunch and snack stands this year, and much less produce. Huh. I’ll still swing by later for fresh Basil and tomatoes.

Actually, I’ve just decided I don’t care about making my goal. It’s freaking gorgeous outside. I’m going for a nice, long walk.

Hooray for Wing-it!

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Recently, the Seattle Chamber of Commerce held a contest to award $35K for an office makeover (Sorry, and “extreme” office makeover!) and my friends at Wing-It Productions were one of the finalists.

And the won! Check out the hot linked image!

Can I get that size checks with duplicates?

Recognize that guy on the left? Huh? Huh?

Child of Fire Cover

Anyway, they put together a great video which you can watch at the Chamber web site. I’ve known Mike and Andrew for many years and I couldn’t be happier for them.

Congratulations, guys!

First, a funny thing

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On my last post, ethelmay dropped a link in the comments of my LiveJournal for this video by debut author Lara Zielin. You’re going to be seeing this link all over the web, so you might as well watch it now.

Besides, she’s funny and she has verve. Like.

What am I doing posting again so soon after I said in my previous post that was going to a thing at my son’s school. Well, I felt worn down and flushed, and I told my wife I was feeling sick. Out I went to catch the bus home early.

While I was standing at the bus stop, I remembered that, as a kid, I was sick on the first day of school every year. My nervousness about going back to the hall of bullies always manifested as illness.

It’s denial. I’m good at denial. It helps me behave like a sane person, but it also sneaks up on me and makes me miserable.

It’s good to be aware.