I’ve been writing for 45 minutes
StandardAnd my wordcount on Man Bites World is currently lower than when I started. ::sigh::
In happier news, my email was correctly backed up, and I haven’t lost any of it. Yay!
Also, my website needs many changes. Many. Good thing I have so much free time. X___X
If you value your sanity
Standarddo not watch this
Part of me hopes it’s fake.
Five things for a Friday
Standard1) For those who missed it, I posted the first chapter of Child of Fire on my site yesterday. You can read it here. If you like it, tell your friends. If you hate it, tell your enemies.
2) Woman getting married to fairground ride. According to the article, she says she has “objectum sexuality, a condition that makes sufferers attracted to inanimate objects.” I avert my gaze as I hurry past the obvious joke there.
3) “Nurse of the Year” in Connecticut, who gave injections and dispensed medical advice, not actually a nurse. Remember, all failures of private industry are individual cases, but all failures within a government program reflect badly on every government program.
4) Drug buyers call the cops on their own dealers. Not because they were ripped off or because the drugs were bad. It was because the dealers were setting up squirrel traps in the park where they operated, and taking the fresh meat home at the end of the day. The drug buyers didn’t like that and dropped the dime on them. Fun note: When I first moved to Seattle, I lived very, very close to that park. It’s a beautiful place. via matt-ruff
5) I’ve always had trouble remembering faces and recognizing people, but man, I have nothing on Ryan O’Neal.
Sample Chapter of Child of Fire
StandardHere is the first chapter of Child of Fire. It’s under 5K words, and I’ll put the bulk of it under a cut to spare the sensitive and uninterested.
CHAPTER ONE
It felt good to sit behind the wheel again, even the wheel of a battered Dodge Sprinter. Even with this passenger beside me.
The van rumbled like a garbage truck, handled like a refrigerator box, and needed a full minute to reach highway speeds. I’d driven better, but I’m a guy who has to take what I can get while I’m still alive to get it.
The passenger beside me was Annalise Powliss. She stood about five foot nothing, was as thin as a mop handle, and was covered with tattoos from the neck down. Her hair was the same dark red as the circled F’s I used to get on my book reports, and she wore it cropped close to her scalp. It was an ugly cut, but she never seemed to care how she looked. I suspected she cut it herself.
She was my boss, and she had been forbidden to kill me, although that’s what she most wanted to do.
Here’s a list of things I did not intend to spend two full days on:
Standard1) Migrating my profiles, files and settings from my old computer to my new one.
That’s it. That’s the list.
It’s weird to deal with computer problems. For me, at least. It just sucks the life right out of me. I want the magic box to keep doing magic, and I feel so betrayed when it fails.
Cross your fingers for me.
Busy busy busy
StandardThings are still crazy here in me-ville. I have so much crap to take care of, and no time to do it all.
Still, there’s always time for health care reform links: Just because we have really successful government-run programs doesn’t mean the government is able to run a program successfully.
More interesting commentary to come.
Riddle me this, Mac Users!
StandardDoes anyone know what to do with applications that simply won’t start? I click on something in, say, a finder window, the correct icon appears in the dock, bounces two or three times as though it’s going to start up, then shrinks down to nothing.
I have an application that I need to use, and it’s one of the ones that doesn’t works. I don’t even know if it used to work, because I’ve never tried to open it before. FWIW, I’m using a Mac Mini G4 with 1.4 Ghz and 512 MB RAM. The program that won’t open (iCal) came with the computer.
I’ve already tried repairing disk permissions and I’ve reinstalled the bundled software from the installation disk. Am I missing something?
Yay! Starred review in PW!
StandardChild of Fire just got a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. Here it is, reprinted via them.
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STARRED REVIEW: Child of Fire Harry Connolly. Del Rey, $7.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-345-50889-8
Connolly’s gritty urban fantasy debut is not so urban: it takes place in Hammer Bay, Wash., where residents are thankful for the toy factory that stimulates their economy and are apparently oblivious to the frequent magical immolations of local children. Convicted felon Ray Lilly works for the mysterious Annalise Powliss and the Twenty Palace Society, hunting down people who use magic and the otherworldly predators whose power they channel. Callous Annalise and hard-nosed Ray have a complicated personal history that gradually comes to light as the Society faces off against factory employees, local law enforcement and other corrupt forces in the town. Unique magical concepts, a tough and pragmatic protagonist and a high casualty rate for innocent bystanders will enthrall readers who like explosive action and magic that comes at a serious cost. (Oct.)
—————-
Holy crap, what a tremendous relief that is. Please do well, little book! Find lots of readers!
Mementos
StandardI brought some things back from the San Diego Comic-Con that I probably shouldn’t have: the folded cardboard name “plate” (what are those things called, anyway?), the program, the souvenir book, and so on. I couldn’t just toss them away, so I packed them in my luggage and now… here they are.
Thing is, I don’t have a place for them. And I won’t look at them again later, not really. At the moment they’re just sitting near my desk, getting in the way.
I couldn’t just throw them out, but now that I brought them home I resent them a little.
More pages to be done today.