Jeff VanderMeer’s “Book Life” looks pretty interesting. He also posted a list of reasources on the book’s site.

Been playing with spreeder.com. It supposedly increases your reading speed. We’ll see.

Sarah got me all excited about Ray Bradbury’s “Death Is A Lonely Business.” When i get home, i’m going to pick it up from the library. Nina says the protag is from “Dandelion Wine,” cool!

Wanna pick up a set of these Linux Stickers to trick out my laptop.

I twittered this, but i want to remember this List of Anarchist Science Fiction, there’s still stuff on here i haven’t read.

LOVE Virtual Box, i love it love it love it. With this install of XP, i doubt i’ll ever need a full Windows box again. *Squee*

How To Write Badly Well by Joel Stickley was pretty hilarious. Want to read the rest of it at some point.

Couple of pay-work sites i need to look over for Extanto: 10 Great Places to Find Web Design Jobs and
10 Great Places to Find Graphic Design Jobs (some overlap in both.)

This site rules: shareable.net is a list of resources and guides for open-sourcing the world.

My God, can U.S. healthcare be any more disastrous? Here are some charts on how we rank against other countries. Pretty bleak.

Creepy and strangely beautiful. This guy crafted a big head mask of himself.

I’m kind of delighted that Christopher Lee got knighted.

[UPDATE] *ahem* E.J. points out that this Magnetic Fields album is from 2004. But is still lovely.

Apostrophe, learn how to use it!

A couple of info-mapping Linux programs: FreeMind and Semantik.

World Fantasy:
Oct 29th – Nov 1st
San Jose, CA

OryCon:
Nov 27th – Nov 29th
Portland, OR

I’ll be doing signings and readings. Come see me!

Here’s what i wish i was doing lately:

1. Finishing the first 50 pages of “Losing Candyland.” (Some folks think it’s fine and i should just send it out. Others think it’s broke. I just want to do one last reorg and polish and send it out.)
2. Polishing the short stories i have and sending them out.
3. Writing a story a week.
4. Submitting to the major markets regularly.
5. Figuring out this !@#$ MFA thing.
6. Starting the next big project.
       Either the next novel.
       or a comicbook script.
       or a screenplay.
7. And i note that NaNoWriMo is right around the corner.

Some complications are that i will be travelling this month, am a panellist at TWO conferences (see next post), have lots of pay-work to do and am generally feeling overwhelmed and stressed. Furthermore, being sick and stuck in the house has left me really stir-crazy.

So here’s the plan:

1. Get out of the house.
2. Break everything down to reasonable chunks and only worry about the chunk currently in front of me.
3. Set a timer to force myself to take breaks.
4. Schedule each category for each work day. So some pay-work, some writing, some long term planning, some downtime.
5. Don’t spend all my downtime online.

I do want to do NanoWriMo or something similar, so part of this will be scheduling a chunk of time everyday to chip away at that.

So i might add a daily update to the bottom of my posts: What i’m working on , how it’s going, what comes next. We’ll see.

Who knows, maybe i’ll do another of my insane challenges or contests. I’ll keep you posted.

I notice that i don’t really know how to move on here. What’s the next post after talking about danelé?

I think the worry that comes up is that it’ll look like i don’t care if i move on too quickly.

Screw it. I still care about danelé, i still miss her and feel sad.

But i have stuff to do, so new post to follow.

danelé was a fighter.

Often for other people, sometimes against them, sometimes against herself. The adrenal cancer was supposed to have killed her years ago, but she stuck around and got on with living her life.

She spelled her name lowercase, so as to be more humble.

She collected people, cared for many. There was no one danelé would give up on. She was a crazy mix of wonder and fears. She was funny and infuriating and complex. I have regrets around my relationship with her, but i remember her explosive laugh and i’ll always owe her for the the years i was part of her family and for the years i got to help raise her son Ayden.

danelé believed in God. I hope she found everything she was sure came next.

She passed peacefully at home surrounded by family and friends. I hear that Ayden was supported by a group of friends who rarely left him. I’m glad. I hear she filled these years with celebration, connection, service and love that paralleled the suffering. I’m glad.

I’m not sure if i miss her yet. We weren’t talking and … well, I feel sad and a little empty and a little numb. It feels weird to write about her. I feel embarrassed, like i shouldn’t be talking about myself or how i feel. She went through five years of cancer, not me. She died. I’m still here.

Still, what else can i do?

I wrote her a tune. I don’t know if it says anything, but it made me feel better.

Actually it makes me smile thinking that she wouldn’t have liked it. I should have written a folk song. Anyway, here’s the track i wrote today ” For danelé. ”

danelé Joy Cousins
March 23, 1971 – October 22, 2009

Eh, i figure if i’m avoiding writing, i might as well be doing something creative.

Sarah asked me to make her a song. This is really just a sketch, only rhythm tracks, and i haven’t even begun to think about lyrics, but let’s just say it’s the thought that counts. K? Right, hon? Right?

Pop for Sarah, otherwise known as Popfors.

Now maybe i’ll go do a little writing before bed. :p

After too much work, i gave up and went to bed. Upon listening this morning … well, *ahem* i present “Dude, What are you doing?”

You are warned.

and UPDATE on the Update:

For the folks who requested it, here’s my acceptance speech at the ceremony.

or just watch the vastly superior version Rhiannon made:

It was cool and crazy and sleepless. Met some really cool people, made some new friends… awesome.

If you’re a writer, and you aren’t yet eligible for SFWA, you should be submitting to this every quarter. Some people have concerns about the organization behind the contest. I’ll let Frederik Pohl address that. Writers of the Future gave me more money for a single story than i’ll ever likely see again.

They put me up in a hip, swank hotel.

My fellow students were talented, funny and just great to be around.

They made me write an entire story in 24 hours.

And while the first half of the ceremony was imperfect. The second half was amazing and touching.

Notice Hercules in the lower left corner.

That's Eric Kotani on my right. He was full of rule.

Before the ceremony, they unveiled our story art. I was blessed to have mine done by Ryan Behrens. You should watch for this guy’s name and/or hire him. He’s immensely talented.

Me with my artist, Ryan Behrens

The signings they arranged had their problems, but i generally had a great time and it was good practice for doing signings at cons.

I cut a rubber stamp specially for this book and stamped every book i signed. Whew. It was so many books that i used up an entire ink pad!

So, let’s sum up, class. It’s surreal, a decent little boost for your career, pays well and is a lot of fun.

Do it!