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2012-09-24 22:53:21 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Crowdsourcing The Excellence: a call for ideas to make life that much better.

Dear internets: my next Booklife Now post is on the need for professionalism, positivity and courage. On Friday, I'd like to post a follow-up with crowd-sourced ideas for enriching and improving a professional life. 
 
The idea sprang from Jeff and Ann VanderMeer's FogCon Booklife Breakfast, where they discussed ways to keep the well from going dry, and Monte Cook's Month of Positivity. It's been a stressful year for most of us, and there's a lot to be negative about. It also sets up the perfect starting place to make life more excellent, more beautiful and more positive. 
 
What are your tricks for resolving negativity? For preserving your sanity in a hard work environment? What helps clear your head and jumpstart your creativity? How do you challenge yourself? What'syou... more »

2012-08-23 22:14:59 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

They're not my tribe, but the cause can be anyone's. Help the Lakota Sioux save Pe' Sla. http://www.indiegogo.com/PeSla-LakotaHeartland

2012-08-23 22:13:57 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

We're only a couple hours in, and already pushing toward $1500. If we make that mark in the next couple of hours, Shanna and I will record the first backer update tonight!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shannagermain/geek-love-an-anthology-of-full-frontal-nerdity?ref=live

2012-05-14 21:13:49 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 9 +1s)

I thoroughly hate keeping secrets about projects I'm excited about, so it is with great glee that I announce the next anthology project I'm involved in: Geek Love: An Anthology of Full-Frontal Nerdity.

+Shanna Germain and Janine Ashbless will be heading up the editing, Lee Moyer and +Galen Dara will be directing art and layout, +Adam Israel is the webmaster, and I'm detail-wrangler and publicist.

Seriously gleeful about this entire thing, and so happy to finally announce it.

2012-03-28 06:39:03 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

I downloaded IVANHOE onto my e-reader, started re-reading it...closed it out, and went to get the much-loved green and gold leather edition. There are some books that must, MUST be read in the flesh.

Problematically, this is also bringing back my slight obsession with the Aquitaine family. And Eleanor. Oh, dear. This is a rabbit hole I never escape easily.

2012-02-22 22:30:13 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

This is just damn cool.

2012-01-26 03:19:56 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

The next round of Sword and Sorcery podcasts for SFSignal are filling up with some great guests.

Confirmed editors: Lou Anders (Pyr), Erik Mona and James Sutter (Paizo), Scott Andrews (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

Confirmed authors and artists: Violette Malan, Saladin Ahmed, Erin Hoffman, Ari Marmell, Jon Sprunk, Doug Hulick and artist John Picacio.

There are a couple people I'm waiting to hear back from, but the response so far has been 100%, so I should have a few more to add to the list soon.

Recording starts February 21, and we'll be running it in three episodes. If anyone has questions about the genre that they'd like to ask, send away, and I'll try and get them asked.

(If you want to hear the first round, you can find it here:

2012-01-23 21:43:09 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Is there a simple way to block ALL G+ game invitations? I know it's a small annoyance in the grand scheme of things, but it will make me happier. I don't want to end up with a FB-like stream of invites, messages and crap from people I don't even have in my circles.

2012-01-17 01:02:35 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Hey guys: I'm not interested in games of any sort, so please do not include me in your mailing lists and notifications.

2012-01-11 03:29:00 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

I'm craving a new tattoo like a junky craves his next fix. In an attempt to stave this off,, I want to hear about YOUR tattoos! What do you have? What do you want? Who does your art?

2011-12-29 04:43:55 (10 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Tchaikovsky's SLAVIC MARCH, how I love thee. Not my favorite classical piece ever (hello, Rachmaninov and Beethoven), but on the top 10.

What is your favorite specific piece of classical music?

2011-12-28 07:58:13 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 3 +1s)

Building a page for Rigor Amortis as a bit of an experiment. Feel free to chime in, add links, etc!

2011-12-28 00:11:51 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I'll probably be offline on New Year's day, so I've been working on the list of things I need/want//have to accomplish this next year. I'm terrified and excited and hopeful. This might be the best year ever, if I can remember to keep moving forward and not let insecurities and fear get to me.

Partial list:

Write a No-Tolerance Anti-Harassment Policy for WFC: a specific version for 2012, and, hopefully, get it added to the official documents for perpetuity.

Launch the Grievance Committee to handle harassment in the SF world.

Expand the coverage, prestige and knowledge of the Nebula Awards. There are secret plans afoot here that are quite exciting.

Write a military spec-fic, conspiracy-theory, paranormal, apocalyptic science-fiction madhouse of a novel.

Finish the madhouse fantasy novel.

Launch a west-coast branch... more »

2011-12-22 21:44:44 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I have a pretty low tolerance for political rhetoric, none at all for hate speech of any stripe, and a somewhat knee-jerk reaction to conspiracy theories, thanks to the family I saw most when growing up. (My last interaction with that family was when I disowned them after a weekend of white supremacy and political conspiracy ranting, misogyny, downright abuse by a cousin. If that tells you anything.)

Unfortunately, this means my grasp of recent history and political trends is not as strong as it should be. I simply cannot divorce myself from years of looking at it wrong. Frustrating, and something I firmly acknowledge as a weakness.

However, I've recently been spending a lot of time talking to a friend who does have a good grasp of all these things, and has, in fact, studied it at length. No, he isn't a politician or a professor, 'just' an old anti-terrorist agent and... more »

2011-12-15 02:03:32 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 3 +1s)

My latest Inkpunks post, on SF awards and the basics of understanding and navigating them as a reader, writer or other industry professional.

2011-12-13 11:24:51 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Made it out to a club for the first time on the west coast. Oh, the happiness. Great friends, good atmosphere, lovely new people, a lot of delicious gothy eye-candy and decent music.

In slightly related discovery: I've lost a great deal of muscle mass since I stopped working retail (the guys made me do the heavy work because I was stronger!), and I'm actually happier with my body than I have been in some time. Of course, given that about half the kids at the club could have hidden behind a pencil, we'll see how long this lasts.

2011-12-13 01:47:46 (2 comments, 4 reshares, 6 +1s)

Ahhhh! RigorAmortis is #10 on the Barnes and Noble Best Zombie Fiction of 2011 list!!!

2011-12-12 03:10:17 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Bought berries, samosas and a masdevallia orchid at the farmer's market; nommed ramen soup and matcha at a noodle shop, chased with honey milk tea and cheesecake; browsed a bead store, a tea store and window-shopped a dozen other restaurants. It's good to be back in California.

2011-12-11 06:51:32 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

I have found an archive of traditional Iranian recipes. If I use veggie meat instead of regular, this is damn near my ideal diet. Plus, the house smells GREAT.

And I got a whole review written!

2011-12-11 03:08:25 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

I'm working on an email to +John Anealio and +Patrick Hester to let them know what reviews I should have soon, because I've been lax about writing them up.

Apparently I've been reading. A LOT. How much?

Saintcrow's The Hedgewitch Queen and the first 2 Strange Angels books. Tchaikovsky's Empire in Black and Gold. Enge's Blood of Ambrose. Gustainis' Hard Spell. Newton's City of Ruin. Goodman's Eona. 3 Pratchett books. de Lint's The Mystery of Grace. Flwelling's The Bone Doll series. Hurley's Infidel. Jacobs' Southern Gods. Kadrey's Butcher Bird. SFWA's European Hall of Fame anthology. And a bunch of stuff I sent back with my mom a few weeks ago and therefore don't recall, but is about 6 more books.

All within the last 6 weeks or so. In other words...dear gods, I'm behind on reviews. And I STILL feel guilty for... more »

2011-12-09 22:03:07 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 3 +1s)

Steps of Social Media Fail:

This morning I read an article on writing that I thought was very insightful, on a group publisher-run blog. I generally share writing articles over on Twitter, so I looked for a way to share it in this way.

1. There was no Twitter share button on the post. Or any other social media share button.

2. There was no information anywhere on the page as to the group blog's twitter handle, the author of the article's twitter handle, or the publisher's twitter handle so I could easily go over and RT (or in any way let any relevant person know I was sharing).

3. I searched for the author's name over on Twitter. Found somebody else, but no writer.

4. I searched for the author's website on Google. Lucky for me I didn't just type in his name dot com, because the website name has nothing to do with his... more »

2011-12-09 22:01:11 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Excellent post about publicity from Gabrielle Gantz, publicist at Viking and Penguin, for SFWA. We'll be posting several more on this subject over the next few months

2011-12-05 22:11:05 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

Story prompt: "I found the cure for cancer three days after she moved into the final stages. The day she died, they announced free treatment for anyone affected."

The last person who died in Auschwitz, the last victims of Spanish Influenza or smallpox, 5 minutes too late to prevent the massacre, the only person to not catch a bullet because you were out taking a piss...I find survivor's guilt to be an interesting and complex thing anyways, but I wonder how much worse it would be if you were a day late to save the person you loved. You would be saving countless millions of people from a horrible death, but you would have been just too slow for yourself.

What would that do to the human heart? To a brilliant mind? (I also wonder what would happen if someone ELSE discovered it. Both sides of the coin are interesting.)

2011-12-03 03:07:14 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

It is really, really humbling when you send an email to the wrong person...when it is business. ~wince~

2011-11-30 08:42:05 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

As if we didn't already know how awesome +Galen Dara is, here's her latest illo for me. Know this, people: you need to keep an eye on this one. She's going to just get better.

2011-11-29 08:06:30 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

I am returned from the desert. I've bounced between 190 feet BELOW sea level to 8000 feet ABOVE sea level so many times I'm not even sure where I stand. Everything is quite dusty, my spine has been jounced to pieces on 4x4 roads, a short-term familial cold war has been (temporarily) laid to rest, and I have LOADS of work to catch up on.

Been a wonderful, amazing, head-clearing vacation, in other words. Pictures and thoughts to come later.

2011-11-20 05:59:28 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

I'm sure I have SOME friends I could hang out with for an entire day where the conversation wouldn't turn into a raging string of innuendo...

Someone.

Maybe if everyone had their mouths taped? And their hands tied?

2011-11-15 01:01:59 (3 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

Tea is delicious, practical alchemy. You take nasty, dry stuff, add flavorless stuff, and end up with liquid magic.

2011-11-10 07:47:49 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Being bored occasionally leads to questions like 'If you could only save 5 books from your shelf, (due to apocalyptic disaster of some sort), knowing those might be the only 5 books you see for the rest of your life, what would you keep?'

The discussion has been amazing! There is far less overlap than I expected. Bradbury and Gaiman are favorites, religious books, genre mainstays and classics share about equal space, and even practical books are getting saved. Boneshaker to the Bible to a cookbook.

But the common sentiment I'm hearing: "I don't know how I'd choose! I'd pine for the ones I left behind!"

Books are lumps of cheap paper with words on, yet we develop relationships with them, in many ways. There are books that I know so well I don't even need to read them any more, merely the act of holding them is comforting. Millions of them... more »

2011-11-08 19:42:10 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Hey folks, if you're a litblogger/book reviewer type and are willing to entertain - no obligation to review - pitches from indie authors, self-pubs, small presses and various other nontraditional sources, sign up for Bookshot.

2011-11-08 00:35:13 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Halloween eye-candy for fans of the dark and bizarre. This is beautiful, and totally NSFW.

2011-11-06 08:48:41 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

It's cold, so I'm writing again! I can usually draft an entire novel during a winter, so I'm hoping to finish up the first INHERENT book, and maybe a short story or two. However, tonight got eaten by my Sword and Sorcery character, and a white-eyed, black-hearted immortal monster-man.

Under a full moon, his skull seemed to shine through his skin. He rode, naked, on a horse as white as he. At first, she had thought him an albino, perhaps driven out by those who feared evil. But his eyes were as white as his hair and eyes.Only his blood was not white, but ran as black as a northern night, and froze anything it touched. She had lost two fingers to his wounding,and had hoped that would be enough to pay for the blood.
Apparently not.

2011-11-04 23:49:37 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

For some reason, winter is my season. Autumn is good, too, because it is leading up to the best of seasons, but from December to about April, I'm a happy dragon. My desktop images tend to be of cold, quiet scenes. I write obsessively, eschew contact with people as much as possible, eat very little and read voraciously. My ADHD calms down, I'm less touchy, I can actually sleep and exercise regularly. And yes, I get depressed during the summer.

Winter is coming. Hallelujah.

2011-11-04 00:40:29 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Since I worked my ass off on Halloween AND my birthday, I'm not taking one day off to celebrate. I'm taking my evenings to read on the couch. It's raining today, so there is a pot of All The Deliciousness potato soup on the stove, and I'm hustling my way through today's work in anticipation of a thoroughly lovely evening. Universe, I will DESTROY you if you interfere again.

2011-11-01 09:00:14 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

Finally got everything wrapped up and pulled together to post about the harassment/stalker issue at World Fantasy Convention. And now, because I have not had even a 10-minute break from this for the last 12 hours, as well as it taking most of my day Saturday AND Sunday, I'm going to go read for a while, goddammit.

2011-11-01 00:19:16 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

I've decided that this is a good evening for tricks. The little bastards knock at my door, they'll be tricked, all right. They are practically asking to be shaken down for candy.

2011-10-31 21:42:11 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

(G+ or my computer ate my status update the first time. ~shakes fist~)

I'm back from World Fantasy Convention. My desk is piled with business cards, to-do lists, contact reminders, receipts and books. So many books. It was brilliant and horrible, intense, affirming, emotionally-draining, beautiful, exhausting, refreshing, and, as usual, way too short.

As anyone who brushed up against the stalking/harassment issues* knows, there was plenty of bad. This is, unfortunately, probable in any situation where so many people are gathered together. It isn't the first time, but it might be the most visible in recent history. I want to thank everyone who spoke up, stood by those of us who were affected, and made it possible to have a satisfactory resolution. My sympathy to those who were affected directly, because just solving the problem doesn't remove the ripples of the event... more »

2011-10-26 14:40:33 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I've had multiple head injuries, the most memorable being a car wreck in kindergarten, and being kicked in the forehead by a horse when I was 15. I have always had some headaches, but migraines run in the family, so I didn't think about it. But they've been getting worse this last year. I figured the 2 in one week was stress-related, but then I had 2 short, sharp headaches last night, and this morning, I look like I slammed my head into a wall.

Might be time to see a doctor and make sure there's nothing going on. (Of course, this was perfect timing to find the study saying 'people with head trauma are very likely to die within 13 years of receiving this trauma!' I have a convention to go to, and refuse to find out how correct this study is.)

2011-10-26 04:39:54 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

The first novel draft I wrote was an Urban Fantasy springing from a Second American Internal War. The seeds of that war were in the rising gas prices, censorship and police brutality, and culminated with a bloody war that ripped America into a dozen different countries.

Watching the Occupy movements is rather disturbing, in that light. I also should have finished the novel at the time: now I'd either be cashing in or getting myself arrested for inflammatory propaganda. Oops.

2011-10-25 23:42:15 (10 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Chocolate, tea and Triscuits is a balanced diet, right? I'm apparently trying to get my system used to half-rations and crappy food ahead of time. (I'm horrible about eating at cons. I'll usually just skip meals until I start getting light-headed.)

2011-10-24 02:36:34 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

"An Akhal-Teke stallion with three Teke warriors and two heavy felt coats aboard and wounded by a saber escaped the pursuit of Cossacks over shifting sands and reached Merv (500 km away)."

2011-10-24 01:17:46 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

This is fantastic. The Mongolian horses were, indeed, tiny, as were most Asian horses. But, as history (and this video) shows, it didn't slow them down much!

2011-10-23 03:11:42 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

I'm watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen while reading Jane Lindskold. I apologize for destroying the space-time continuum...Geezus this is a horrible movie.

2011-10-21 20:33:31 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

via: territa.ru/photo/804

2011-10-21 07:04:09 (13 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Unexpected-But-Awesome thing for the night: wandering back to Twitter just in time to see an author trying to figure out how the size of a woman's breasts would affect archery. Given that this is right up my alley, I ended up discussing the particular challenges and adjustments for several minutes. It makes me happy to see someone thinking in that much detail about their stories, and taking the time to learn.

The downside is that I will now be writing a blog about large breasts in heroics, and I REALLY want to get my bow out of storage and get back to shooting.

2011-10-20 21:36:49 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Crap. The old itch is itchy again. I seem to recall swearing off this stuff after the last injury... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eventing

2011-10-20 20:53:01 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Today's open browser tabs already include 'jump sire lines' (horses), local agents (for possible internships), articles on Amazon's new imprint, polyamory debates, oreo cookie-barcodes, and hell houses.

Speculative life is fun.

2011-10-20 00:13:01 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 8 +1s)

Every convention I've been to has had at least one moment where I feel the need to put myself in the company of a group of allies to protect myself. I've had open harassment in front of other people, and heard way too many stories from other people.

This isn't a 'this doesn't apply to me', 'I've never had an issue', 'this is just reactionary', etc. While I am firmly of the opinion that women need to know how to protect themselves, I would like to see the message in the post become a common, enthusiastically-supported phrase: "Real consent is enthusiastic."

No means no. It doesn't mean try harder, it doesn't mean 'she's an uptight bitch', it means 'stop trying and leave her in peace'.

(I strongly suggest reading the links at the bottom of the post, as well. It sheds very valuable light on a... more »

2011-10-19 20:37:28 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Artist John Picacio linked to this gallery on Twitter this afternoon. Absolutely beautiful, creepy work. Can't imagine how much more powerful they would be, in person.

2011-10-18 04:43:23 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 11 +1s)

via: artkoo.net