If you're near Arlington (Massachusetts) and want to see some really cool gothic bellydance (and me), come to Raks Spooki tonight!

http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/4838934

It's 7:00 to 10:00 at the Regent Theater, and proceeds to go Women for Women.

If I'm reading the new Nebula rules correctly, these stories of mine are eligible to be nominated in the short story category this year:

"The Kennel Club," Helix, issue 9, July 2008

"Minya's Astral Angels," The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Three, February 2009

"Organ Nell," Apex Magazine, December 2, 2008

"...That Has Such People in It," Apex Magazine, July 6, 2009

"'Til Death Do Us Part," Shock Totem, issue 1, July 2009

Not that I think any of them are particularly Nebula-worthy, but I figured I'd post the list in case people disagreed. I'll happily email a copy of "Minya's Astral Angels" to any SFWA voting members who are interested in reading it. "'Til Death Do Us Part" is a 100-word zombie story, so I see no point in offering to email that to anyone.

The novella review tour for Ars Memoriae is doing quite well. So far, we have entries from drachin8 (here) and bogwitch64 (here). drachin8's copy is already spoken for, but you can still snag a copy from bogwitch64. Or you can watch pauljessup's and doc_lemming's blogs, because the tour will be visiting them next.

And as promised, here is my own photo contribution, with some "help" from Octavia:

http://www.dailykitten.com/2009/11/harley-2/

http://www.dailykitten.com/?p=3838

Location: San Francisco, California, USA

Harley is a frisky little four month old orange tabby. His favorite hobbies are playing with milk carton tops, catching mommy’s toes, and of course tearing her curtains to shreds. Despite the torn curtains and the headaches, Harley is the best kitten, we couldn’t have asked for anything more!

http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/2009/11/off-to-write-deal.html

Create a sticky note online for your blog at Wigflip.com's sticky note generator, Superstickies (link swiped from Gerard over at The Generator Blog.)

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/2009/11/sunday-secrets_15.html

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people
mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard.





-----Email Message-----

I worked for Reuters my entire life and was one of their most senior, valued employees. I was laid off last year when Thomson bought them over. Thank you so much for sending this in. If you can't join 'em, beat 'em.


-----Email Message (pic)-----

A designer friend told me that the secret inspiration for the new Pepsi logo was the Simpson's Comic Book Guy.
























-----Email Message-----

More things to make you happy: http://1000awesomethings.com







-----Email Message-----

I wish it was okay for women to talk about poop the way men do. . . Because sometimes I'm proud when I have a particularly big or interesting one and I really want to tell someone about it!





See More Secrets. Follow PostSecret on Twitter.




-----Email Message (pic)-----

She was texting when she hit us from behind and pushed us into the pickup 3 feet in front of us. Thank God for Airbags.





















Order Your Copy Today

Hey, je viens de me rendre compte que j'ai 15'000 mots, quand même ^^ C'est toujours aussi désespéré, mais bon, j'arriverai peut-être à faire le NaNo 50k à défaut du 100k.
Faut dire, entre une correction, deux salons, et un nouveau site en préparation, j'ai un peu mis le NaNo de côté...

Last night I stopped by the drug store to pick up a gift card so I could buy a pet crab for my character in the Korean online game that I play with my sister.

The future happened while my back was turned, didn't it?

(Still alive. More content soon.)

Hier fut une journée lamentable pour le NaNo...
Et aujourdh'ui ne vaut pas encore grand chose dans ce domaine. Je bloque, je tourne en rond... et je joue à WoW au lieu d'écrire.
Bon, je ne prends pas de retard, c'est déjà ça... Mais bon.

La jauge du jour :

23936 / 50000 mots. 48% du NaNo !

Je me suis aussi retrouvé à craquer et à entamer un nouveau projet qui tournait depuis un moment dans ma tête. Si ça intéresse quelqu'un, voila l'intro :
( ... )

http://www.dailykitten.com/2009/11/arroyo/

http://www.dailykitten.com/?p=3833

Location: South Pasadena, California, USA

Arroyo was rescued off the northern end of the 110 Freeway in Los Angeles, CA on 10/23. I was driving home from work when I saw him and a littermate getting ready to step into traffic. Was able to pull over and save him, but not his calico sister. We estimate he’s about four weeks old. He visited the vet this week and was given a clean bill of health and lots of love. Plans to just foster him were dashed when he curled up on my chest and fell asleep.

http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/2009/11/endweek-nanopost_14.html

Since the midweek NaNoPost I've been dealing with things that don't belong in my writing space that I let get into my writing space. Why? Well, I had the best of intentions. It was important. I thought I could sort it out quickly and get back to work. And I didn't, not for two days, and it wrecked me and derailed the decent momentum I had going with the NaNoNovel.

People who are not writers often have very little idea of how much havoc they can create in the writing space. At times it's the equivalent of going to someone's workplace to empty a garbage can on their desk in front of their boss while shrieking obscenities at them. Kind of difficult to get back to being a happy, productive worker after someone subjects you to that.

So what do you do when someone intrudes and dumps their garbage in your writing space? I believe the writer has to first get them out of it. The next task is to clean up the mess they made and carry out the trash they left behind. Once the writing space is restored to optimum working conditions, the writer can then make peace with what happened and get back to work.

Easier said than done, I know. Sometimes you have to relocate your writing space, become very creative with handling other people's garbage, or even take some time away from work to clear your head, focus, and find a way back to where you were before this happened.

After an intrusion, I depend on meditation and work to reset my head and help me cope. It never happens fast enough to suit me, but I've also learned that pretending me and my writing space haven't been trashed doesn't work. I do know better than to stop writing, even when I have to work through days when I can't produce a single decent sentence. I write badly anyway. The very act of writing anything is quietly, enormously healing.

I'm hoping today that I get back on track. If not, I'll keep working until I do. I may not always guard my writing space as I should, but as long as I keep writing there, it will always be my sanctuary.

In case anyone is interested in seeing some excerpts from my NaNoNovel, I posted one at the groupblog last Saturday and another at the Stories blog today.

# of queries read this week: 272
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 0
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: n/a


A lot of people have good luck rituals. Lucky ties, shirts, jewelery, etc. Throwing salt over their shoulder. Not stepping on cracks. And so on. Many people believe that Friday the 13th is unlucky. For me, however, this day seems auspicious: it's the first time my query folder has been under 200 since early April (pre London Book Fair). On the other hand, I can remember a time that I used to be surprised that it got over 100.

On this day, Friday the 13th, I bring you some query letter superstitions:

* What time of year a query is sent makes a difference.
* A random sampling of people liking the book guarantees it will sell widely.
* Spell-checking and proof-reading are done by copy-editors and therefore the manuscript doesn't need that beforehand.
* Arguing with a rejection will change the agent's mind.
* Sending the same exact query 3 weeks later will get a different reply.
* In the same vein, repeat queries over the course of many months will wear an agent down until they agree to representation.
* Agents never remember who they meet and what they've requested, so it's okay to lie about that. This is particularly successful if referencing a conference the agent has never attended.
* You can't get published without an agent; you can't get an agent without being published.

Some agent superstitions about queries:
* It is bad luck to read queries on vacation, on birthdays, and during the holiday season.
* Burying a query at the cross-roads means it won't come back to haunt you.
* Don't feed them after midnight or get them wet.
* They breed while you sleep. (Oh, wait. That one's true.)

What query superstitions can you think of? Or, do you do anything that smacks of ritual when you send a query out? What is it and what is it supposed to augment/prevent?

Innsmouth Free Press is running a multiethnic issue in 2010 and we want your scary, funny, exciting and plain-bizarre stories with a Lovecraftian twist. You have until December 15, 2009 to send your tales of the fantastic. Please note, we have received a ton of stuff set in Latin America. We are interested in seeing more subs set in other regions: Asia, Africa and India would be nice.

Read full guidelines here.

About us: Innsmouth Free Press is a horror zine publishing daily articles, interviews, reviews and meta-fiction. Three times a year, it produces a short fiction issue. Authors who have appeared previously in our tri-annual fiction issues include: writer and editor Nick Mamatas, 2008 recipient of the Campbell Award for Best New Write Mary Robinette Kowal and Lovecraftian poet Ann K. Schwader. Writers appearing in 2010 will include novelist Ekaterina Sedia, RPG and fiction writer David Conyers, and more. Join the Innsmouth Free Press family by sending your sub today.

So I bought a box of plastic forks at the store the other day, because I’ve been bringing my lunch lately and what’s the thing I never have? Forks. Planning ahead, that’s me. Except I cracked the box open yesterday, and noticed on the back…there’s an expiration date. Of last month.

Plastic forks…expire? Um. Okay. Kind of shows you what sort of week I’ve had though.

I went on a Nano frenzy last weekend and ended up writing like 9k in about 24 hours. Which was really awesome but then I messed up my arm. Sad. I have what I like to refer to as ‘mousing arm’. Where you use the mouse to scroll so much that you end up aggravating a nerve.

It sounds really stupid, but there you go. So I’m wearing a dorky wrist-brace and generally trying to be careful. Which is harder than it sounds – you don’t realize how much you’re on the internet!

At any rate, my Nano project is up to 15k, but I plan on catching up again this weekend – with my arm at a more pleasant angle and using my alpha smart (thus taking mousing out of the scenario).

And…um…that’s about it for me lately. Been going to bed early because if I can’t type, WHAT GOOD AM I??? And things like that. I keep thinking of things I need to blog about, but when I sit down to blog, they fly out of my head.

Mirrored from Jill Myles Dot Com.

• Looking at my schedule for this weekend more closely, I’m doing the writing workshop at the same time as the DAW vs. Baen panel, so unless we have last-minute dropouts from the workshop, it looks like I’ll be missing that panel.  I’m sad about this, because it had the potential to be … well, lively, if nothing else.

• Since I am doing the “What Kids are Reading” panel on Sunday, I thought I’d open things up to suggestions.  What do you think are the must-read kid titles of 2009?  I’ve got some ideas, but there’s always room for more.  (I may compile a full list of suggested books after the panel and post that next week, if folks would be interested?)

• My annual domestic violence book drive will be starting next week.  Details to come.

• Finally, dear NASA — please build this.  (Only, you know, out of genuine spaceworthy materials instead of LEGO.)  This is the Carl Sagan, a mindblowing collaborative project between Lego Monster and Mad Physicist.  It even has its own shuttles!  One picture does not do this sucker justice.  Click the pic for the full set.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

http://www.dailykitten.com/2009/11/aura/

http://www.dailykitten.com/?p=3828

Location: Akron, Ohio, USA

Here Aura is only eight weeks old. She is my third cat ever, my first female, and my first Ragdoll. After I lost my sweet, lovable, Persian Oscar, I thought life would never be the same. I set out trying to find someone half as sweet as he was. I had never heard of Ragdolls before, so I like to think that Oscar lead me to the breed and to Aura, who was born the same week Oscar passed away.

http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/2009/11/dimensional-ten.html

Ten Free RPG Generators I Played with over at Dimensions Game Software

Sight: A thickening fog Sound: A whistle Taste: Bland Touch: Springy Smell: Inviting (The Ambience Generator)

"You hear rattling sounds." (The Automated GM)

The Catacomb Generator

Rhapsodomancy: Divination by using random verses, passages, or words from the works of a great poet. (The Divination Generator)

Fern: Hart's tongue Flower: Gardenia Fungus: Bread mold Herb: Henbane Moss: Peat moss Tree: Cashew Grass: Buffalo Grass Shrub: Snowberry Vine: Ivy Weed: Bindweed (The Fantastic Flora Generator)

Name: Colm Origin: Gaelic Gender: Male Meaning: Dove (The Name Generator)

"The trees shall die before the desert shall stumble." (The Obscure Prophecy Generator)

Demeanor: Oblivious Hardship: Deaf Phobia/Mania: (None) Occupation: Doll maker (The Personality Generator)

chybblaerm ~ kralychaeg ~ laefdraz ~ mylyglah ~ wiemy (The Word Generator)

Number of Continents: 3 Number of Major Island Chains: 4 Number of Oceans: 6 Number of Moons: 2 Number of Suns: 3 [also generate continents, island chains, regions and more] (The Worldbuilder)

To check out more of Dimensions Game Software's free online RPG generators, head over to their RPG toolbox page and scroll down to the bottom.