1) From last July: Torchwood writer James Moran walks away from blogging because of abusive fans.
2) 21 News Caption Fails. via Adam-Troy Castro
3) Coal: Cheap. Abundant. Clean. Cheap.
4) The worst and weirdest vampire merchandise. So, so very wrong. via Chris Sims at ComicsAlliance
5) Happy Birthday, Planet Earth! Really? Only 6012? Because–not to be insensitive here–but you look at least four billion years old. via antickmusings
A good day today on Man Bites World. I enjoy the revision process when it involves punching up a scene, but I hate going through the rest of the scene to make sure I changed every detail every time. Annoying, but necessary.
Also I managed to get through the day without crawling under the covers. So there’s that.
And it’s Halloween time! Which means I watch scary (and supposedly scary) DVDs. Tonight I put in disk one to watch episode one of TRUE BLOOD. Twelve minutes. That’s all I could stand. That show was a parade of assholes obvious plot choices. Oh, it’s the good ol’ boy who’s the vampire?! What a shock! I’ve never seen that before, except for NEAR DARK. And the Gooch Brothers. And… ah fuck it. It’s not worth the time.
The characters who weren’t assholes were tiresome. Is it really so hard for people to have interesting conversations? To be at odds with each other without being complete creeps?
I should have put in the Louis Jordan DRACULA again.
All the books I currently need to send went out this morning. The AREs Del Rey asked me to sign are signed and on their way back. I have dedicated time to revise Man Bites World this week, and the more I work on it, the more I like this book again. Also, the on-publication payment for Child of Fire arrived today. Nothing like a few thousand dollars to lift your spirits, eh?
Then why am I so fucking miserable?
I’ve spent the last several days in a fog, unable to concentrate or exert myself in any serious way. It’s taken me a while (as it always does) to acknowledge that I’m depressed. Not only that, but I’m depressed with my family on the other side of the country.
I shouldn’t be surprised. I always have a bit of depression when I finish a project, and having a book on actual shelves in actual stores is pretty much the finish of this project. The thrill of the early release has subsided as the book slid back in the Amazon.com sales rankings like a Yugo on an icy hill.
And, worse, I feel like crap. I have some kind of stomach bug, and it’s making me weak and queasy.
But now that I’ve named it, the depression is going to recede. That’s what it has always done in the past, at least. Tomorrow I’ll have more control.
Time for bed.
Upon further thought, I’ve decided to change my policy about reviews. As some folks (ie: Josh Jasper) have said, it can help drive traffic to review sites, and it’s part of the conversation. I’ll put links and excerpts behind a cut, though, and I still have no plans to comment directly on review posts.
Continue reading
via mightygodking
2) The Genreville book club for October runs this week. The book is Seanan McGuire’s Rosemary & Rue, which I haven’t read because it just came out. Apparently, it’s selling quite well, though, so if you read it and want to participate, head over now.
Anyway, this is interesting to me not just because she sat next to me at my panel at Comic-Con. The book club actually starts off with a note from Rose Fox asking the author to refrain from commenting because it stifles the conversation.
And that was the basis of my original desire to make no mention of reviews in my blog. Maybe I should do a review link-farm post, and back date it so it doesn’t turn up on friends lists or something. Yet another thing to add to the to-do list.
3) “I sold my family downriver for a manuscript.” via Bookslut
4) Do Americans want bipartisan support of health care reform? Sure. Do they want bipartisanship at the expense of the public option? No, they absolutely do not. A majority of Americans want the public option, whether it garners any Republican support or not. via Ezra Klein.
5) Man, it’s going to be tough for this dude to find a new job in this economy.
6) What happens when a man loses job and the healthcare that goes with it? What if the man’s wife and the mother of his three children has cancer and needs chemotherapy they can’t afford? He joins the Army.
This is my 400th post on my blog, and the 2,222 post on LiveJournal. Those numbers don’t come around every day, so I’m going to do a giveaway.
Josh Jasper (aka sinboy) once suggested I make a replica of a ghost knife (just a replica, of course, you couldn’t cut through steel with it) but my efforts at making the sigil came out crappy. So I’m going to give away copies of Child of Fire.
So it’s post 400! And that second number up there has four twos, and if you add two twos together, you get four. And you get to do that twice. So I’m going to give away four copies of my novel (that’s how much brown paper I have left, anyway).
Here are the “rules.” The first two posts on the blog and the first two comments on LiveJournal get them. WordPress holds new comments for approval, so don’t fret if your comment doesn’t appear right away. I’ll tell you you’re getting one, you’ll send me your address, and it’ll ship it. You can keep it, donate it, gift it, whatever you want. You don’t have to read it right away, and you don’t have to review it online (although come on, people, I live and die by this stuff). It doesn’t matter if you already have a copy and just want a second. You ask and I give, no strings attached.
The books will be signed and inscribed any way you like and I’ll ship it anywhere in the world.
I got the idea for this because Del Rey sent me ten copies of the Advance Readers Edition to sign and return to them to use as prizes. I was surprised that they still had some lying around, especially since I asked them to send a bunch to this or that reviewer, and I know several didn’t get it.
No matter. Want one? Lemme know.
Update: All taken. You can still buy one, of course.
The time for equal marriage rights? It’s passed. Read this. Not even a durable power of attorney and a living will was enough to overcome prejudice, and a woman died alone without a visit from her children or her partner.
Seriously, read it. I have my ballot on the table behind me. I’m going to fill it out right now.