The Fall. If you can, watch it without knowing a thing about it.
Don’t wait. See it right away. You’ll be glad you did.
Phew
StandardI met my goal for the day, which makes three days in a row. Jeez, this is almost like a job. And since I had some extra time, I took care of the three little revisions my editor asked for in Everyone Loves Blue Dog. And that’s where the crazy came in.
I know the book is going straight to the copy editor, and I was paralyzed by the knowledge that I wasn’t going to get a chance to revise it. I mean, I was inexplicably freaked out by it.
Still, it’s done (once again!) and sent off. Next for … Blue Dog will be the copy edit in a few months. Next for Man Bites World is another morning trying to hit my goal before my wife goes to work, which will be tomorrow.
I have twenty minutes to check out my library materials and hit the farmer’s market for some beefsteak tomatoes. Enjoy your day.
Man Who Assaulted Black Woman Later “Lynched” With Words
StandardFor fuck’s sake, people. I’m supposed to be working on my book right now, but Qwest made it super easy to log on to the Internet from Starbucks, so I did and I read my f-list and now I’m pissed off.
Via Making Light.
Talking Points Memo lays it out.
You can follow the link to the Making Light post if you want a summary, but here’s an writeup that’s even more brief: Tom Tancredo has recently called Sonia Sotomayor a racist, and said she belonged to a “Latino KKK”. One of Tom Tancredo’s people, Marcus Epstein, the executive director of Team America PAC (“A Political Action Committee Dedicated to Securing Our Nation’s Border”), was drunk on the street and karate-chopped a passing black woman on the head and called her a nigger. This isn’t just an accusation; Epstein has already plead guilty to the charge.
If you think that would prompt Tancredo to fire him, well, aren’t you adorable. In fact, the current plan is that he’s going to continue running Tancredo’s PAC until he leaves for law school in the fall.
Bay Buchanan has written an essay defending the man. No, I’m not going to link to it, but you can find it easily enough at one of the links above. In her essay, Buchanan describes Epstein’s battle with alcohol and depression, and I wish him the best in that, once he’s paid his debt for his crime.
But then she calls the media attention he’s received a lynching.
For Christ’s sake, people, “People are saying mean things about me on the internet” is not the same as being dragged out of your bed at night, hanged and set on fire.
I just… I don’t understand how people could be so narcissistic and so ignorant of history. The whole thing makes me sick.
Yeah, I’ll be jumping right back into my book now, no freaking problem.
7 Things Make a Friday Post
Standard1) Dance craze outlawed because it caused “broken penises.”
2) John Scalzi rants lightly about fan “ownership” of public figures.
3) Russia accuses Poland of starting WW2. How dare Poland stand up for itself! They deserved to be attacked for not acquiescing immediately! Note the last paragraph in the article about pending legislation which would make it a crime to state that the Soviet Union occupied Poland or any other Baltic state, punishable by five years in prison.
Russia=still fucked up.
4) I’ve been invited to be on a panel at Comic-Con! More details when everything gets firmed up. In the meantime, let me share the advice my editor gave me: “Be amusing, dammit.”
:-)
5) “But watching conservatives mock liberals for being PC, is like watching the morbidly obese mock Weight Watchers for its system of points.” — Ta-Nehisi Coates (I suggest reading the whole thing, including the author’s replies to comments in the thread below).
6) Oh, God. As much as I’d love to see it revived, I’m not sure I can get behind this project. I mentioned last year that the gift I bought myself when I cashed my first check from Random House were the books I needed to complete my set of Chill, first ed. But they’ve been talking about this third edition for years, and I’m not ready to blithely accept that it’s the economy that delays the game. And $25K??? I dunno. I suspect I’ll pledge my forty-five bucks, but I don’t have a lot of hope.
7) And now, to bury the lede, Child of Fire has been accepted into the Amazon Vine program. Essentially, Del Rey will send 50-75 ARCs of the novel to Amazon.com, who will distribute them to reviewers with a lot of reviews and high rankings. They get to read the book early and their reviews will appear on the Amazon.com site two weeks or so before the publication date.
Normally, reviews can’t be posted until the book drops, so that’s a good thing. Also, Amazon.com rarely takes mmpb for this program because the profits are small per unit, but a sharp gentleman in the marketing department pitched it to them and they signed on!
So, that’s really good news. :D
Click!
StandardTSCC: Not a eulogy
StandardI know some of the folks reading this were fans of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, so let me direct you to this blog post by the executive producer about the end of the show.
From the department of low expectations
StandardI made my word count goal today. It was, as expected, a problem with my focus. I’ve dealt with this before and I know what to do.
In other stories of barely meeting extremely low standards, a California judge dismissed a lawsuit, stating that a reasonable person should know that “crunchberries” are not real berries.
There is also fun in the world
Standard1) It puts the lotion on its skin. Why Archie is smart to propose to Veronica rather than Betty
2) “… Where health care reform becomes entitlement reform.” Ezra Klein on the effects of giving power to experts. Please please please get this right, President Obama, you hold-without-trial bastard.
3) Rebooted movie franchises are the new black! What movie franchise would you reboot? Explain, if you would, what you change. For me, it would have to be THE ROAD WARRIOR, but I would set it in a future where no one talked funny. Oh, and instead of searching for rare gasoline, everyone would just ride bicycles or drive solar cars. And instead of shooting crossbows, they’d throw snack cakes. What’s your idea?
My last post was “This is tough” but this will be tougher
StandardToday I worked on Man Bites World for a little more than an hour before my day job began. On those days, my daily goal is 500 words–just enough to feel I accomplished something in a limited time. On bad days I can feel okay about barely making it; on good days I can double it (or almost double it) and feel pretty good.
Today I wrote 200 words.
There’s no excuse for it. Yesterday was even worse–near as I can tell, I wrote negative one words.
Last night, though, I sat and talked quite a bit with my wife. I’ve been avoiding the Starbucks near my home because some of the other customers are too close and too gross, but working at home isn’t cutting it. Even when I’m out, though, or at a different coffee shop, I’m daydreaming, distracted and generally zoned.
Not that this is new. I’m *always* daydreaming, but I need to get my head clear and focus my daydreaming on the characters.
My wife thinks its a lack of sleep, customary depression following the end (hah!) of … Blue Dog and some overly self-indulgent calorie consumption. She’s right, too. But the only cure I know of is to brow-beat myself into looking at the laptop and only the laptop.
It had better work, too.
This is tough
StandardMy week is split in two. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I’m stuck at my day job, sitting at a computer all damn day. At those times, I have no problem keeping up with my internet reading.
On Saturday through Tuesday, though, I’m home. I run errands, watch my son, cook and clean, and I write.
At least, I’m supposed to be doing all that stuff. What I find myself doing instead is keeping up with the internet, with my LJ friends list, sff.net newsgroups, mailing lists, and all the interesting links and articles that branch off from there.
I’ve got to cut back and skim. I enjoy reading about everyone’s lives (in fact, most of my friends list is devoted to the way people live their lives, and the differing voices they have) but I’m sacrificing things I shouldn’t by putting in all those hours, like writing and exercise. That needs fixing.
On top of that, we’re about to start homeschooling.
You’re going to see even less of me for most of the week from now on. Sorry about that.