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May 9th, 2008

07:38 pm - Misc. Second-draft status achieved on "In the Age of Iron and Ashes", my dancer story: ( Snippet ) This is what comes of reading too much Mahabharata, I guess. I need to do some research on some Aztec stuff for another short I'm working on, which needs some more plot incidents... In non-writing news, I found out there was an anime that was based on the Count of Monte Cristo, one of my all-time favourite novels. So obviously I had to watch that :-) (pretty good so far, from the 3 episodes I've watched). I like the voiceover in French at the beginning of each episode, which is pretty entertaining when you're a native speaker. The art is sometimes weird and not very easy on my eyes, which means I can't really watch more than one or two episodes before fatigue settles in. To my f-list: any other anime I'm missing out on? I've watched (and liked) Utena, Mai Hime and Full Metal Alchemist. I've watched (and didn't like quite so much) Trigun and Cowboy Bebop--I found both of those slick, but the characters just didn't click with me. I've tried watching Gundam Wing, but I got bored. Somebody recommended Avatar, and I can't really bring myself to watch it either, not for more than a few episodes at a time. I guess it's a combination of the Asian stuff being subtly off-base (starting with the elements system, which is just so not Chinese), and of the strong emphasis on martial arts and fight scenes (which I skip because I get bored by them). Thanks! Current Mood: curious

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May 8th, 2008

09:02 pm - Fun stuff, and IZ readers' poll Gawked from stephanieburgis: What Is Your Battle Cry? Sprinting out of the steppes, clutching a piece of chainlink fence, cometh Aliettedb! And she gives a cruel roar: "I'm going to turn you into part of my balanced breakfast!!" Find out! Enter username: Are you a girl, or a guy ? created by beatings : powered by monkeys Never knew it was so difficult to get a good breakfast... In other, non-LOL news, the results of the Interzone Readers' poll are in: (thanks to snickelish for the tip) ( Lengthy, so behind the cut ) Wow. I like placing in the top 10 twice. Mega congrats to Gareth L. Powell (whose story was a lot of fun to read), to Grace Dugan (who had the same totals as Gareth but fewer positive votes), and to Kenn Brown (who illustrated the cover of IZ 213 with maestria). And to the IZ readers for their good taste, obviously ;-) Current Mood: energetic

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12:22 am - Villa Diodati Report So, I did promise (well, imply at least) that there would be a Villa Diodati report at some point. ( Behind the cut ) Current Mood: contemplative

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May 6th, 2008

07:59 pm - Misc. stuff A whole afternoon of debugging to find the one *** variable I had forgotten to assign a new value to. Makes me feel all warm and frustrated inside... In other news: outlining continues apace on the Rahani novel (still not managing to get everything as I want it. I suspect I have too much material to work from). I'm currently making my way through an old history of India, published in Mumbai a while back (big, thick books full of interesting tidbits). And I've taken my good resolution of the month: I'll read the entire Mahabharata. At 18 books, with an average of 200-300 pages per book, this should keep me busy for a while (we're talking singled-spaced, Times New Roman here...). But it's cool to read something close to the original text, even if it's Sanskrit filtered into English. Current Mood: thoughtful

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May 5th, 2008

10:34 pm - I can has first draft? About 5k words of a short story set in my pseudo-Hindu universe. Featuring a doomed city, a dancer, and lots of other weird stuff. It sucks. But hey, I have something to fix ;-) Current Mood: contemplative

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May 4th, 2008

09:38 pm - The joys of mindmapping artemisin introduced me to Freemind, a great little mindmapping software (although I do have some suspicions that it's interfering with Britannica to disastrous effects). I had no idea this existed. It's just great for plotting out the Rahani novel. *happy writer* Also, that "Handbook to Life" series I was raving about? They're putting out a volume called "Handbook to Life in Ancient India and Other South Asia Civilizations". I. Want. Badly. Current Mood: creative

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07:55 pm - Uneventful weekend We left the gîte of Villa Diodati with the BF and artemisin, and dropped artemisin in Orly to wait for her plane. She was 3 hours early, and the plane left 2 hours late due to a tank-refuellers' strike. Sigh. This is how you know we're in France... Worked on a short story set in my Lansara universe for Liberty Hall's Short Story Challenge, and finally finished it. Also finished Mai-Hime, which was an awesome anime (if sometimes slightly too over-the-top for me in part, though the last episode was definitely worth all the build-up). Setting Utena and Mai-Hime side by side, it's weird seeing how big a part incest plays in the overall storyline (I suspect the Izanagi/Izanami myth to be responsible for part of that). Also, why does the urbane, mature guy who makes all the girls fall for him always end up being the ultimate baddy? (Akio and Touga in Utena, Reito in Mai-Hime). Current Mood: curious

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May 3rd, 2008

08:29 pm - Grr... Ten hours of fiddling with my email account to discover why mails were being "eaten", and all that to discover that my provider suppressed some "highly likely spams" by default. Guess what... Among those "highly likely spams" was my copy of a novel query (the one I sent to myself, to retain in my files). Apparently, putting too much text in the body of a mail can be interpreted as spam... *goes bang her head against a wall* Current Mood: frustrated

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May 1st, 2008

07:13 pm - Progress Still at Villa Diodati and having lots of fun. Matthieu arrived today, and we spent a pleasant afternoon walking in the beautiful French countryside. Did a revision pass on the contemporary fantasy story that was critted at Villa Diodati, "A Bitter Taste". I think it's now ready for public consumption. It's totally a Strange Horizons kind of story, except of course, now SH has closed to subs for months (trust me to get the timing just right ;-) ). Current Mood: calm

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April 30th, 2008

08:09 pm - Wow, this is cool... My short story "Sea Child" is one of the Notable Stories of 2007 for the Million Writers Awards. I'm in good company: other nominees include wistling's "Metamorphoses in Amber", catrambo "I'll Gnaw Your Bones, the Manticore Said" and "The Surgeon's Tale" (cowritten with Jeff Vandermeer), kenscholes's "Summer in Paris, Light from the Sky", cybermonklives's "Elspeth Rose", carolineyoachim's "Time to Say Goodnight", Margit Elland Smith's "Under Janey's Garden" (a terrific story which was written at my 2006 OSC's Bootcamp), and ericjamesstone's "Tabloid Reporter to the Stars". Wow. Thanks to marshall_payne for pointing this out to me, and to slushmaster for offering the original rewrite suggestions on this one--and, of course, to the fine folks at Coyote Wild for accepting this one :) More about Villa Diodati later. The workshop has disbanded, but I and artemisin are still staying at the place, in a writing marathon. Current Mood: ecstatic

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April 25th, 2008

09:13 pm - Darkness Notice Blog's going dark. I'm off to Villa Diodati Workshop, Mk II. I'll probably have intermittent Internet access over next week. Have fun while I'm not here :) Current Mood: bouncy

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April 24th, 2008

09:43 pm - Misc. Receiving awesome feedback from my crit group on the novel--thanks, guys! Now I have a much clearer idea of what I need to do. In other news, I'm getting addicted to Mai Hime, which is a bad idea. I have enough time-drains with a new anime series to compulsively watch... Polished "In the House of Learning", which should be my next shot at Sword and Sorceress 23. As usual, it's gotten a lot fatter than it was. Grr. Current Mood: exhausted

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April 22nd, 2008

09:14 pm - FTP Grr. I had posted a question on FTP transfers, but I found the answer on my own. I hate my webserver. Its only advantage is that it comes free with my email account, but it's severely limited, and it's starting to really annoy me. Current Mood: frustrated

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April 21st, 2008

08:53 pm - Grr... Spent all day debugging code, only to discover I had a. transposed an array by accident, so was doing rather unexpected calculations on it b. filled the array leaving one hole, which was initialised to a random value. Rather unfunny results ensued. (if you're not a geek, what it boils down to is: I made two silly mistakes that are damn hard to find and fix...) Received awesome crit of the novel by tlmorganfield, which gave me nifty ideas for tackling the revisions--thanks a lot! I have to force myself NOT to do it right now, as I still have a handful of those crits coming in, and I'd rather not do 15 revision passes. Tagged myself in a book meme, courtesy of stephanieburgis: 1. Pick up the nearest book. 2. Open to page 123. 3. Find the fifth sentence. 4. Post the next three sentences. 5. Tag five people and post a comment to whoever tagged you once you've posted your three sentences. Ok, so the nearest book is, rather unsurprisingly, my copy of "Handbook to life in the Aztec world". p. 123 is "warfare": This kind of formation was especially effective against similar infantry styles; however, once this battle plan faced the horses of the Spaniards, Aztec troops were unequipped to withstand a cavalry charge. To make battle formations effective, individuals have to be very conscious of their own physical stances within the formation. Soldiers kept their weight balanced between their left, forward foot and their right foot, which would advance the body as the warrior threw a weapon of any kind. Boy, taken out of context, this does make for dry reading... I'm not tagging anyone, but feel free to tag yourself in the comments :) *off to bake Matthieu a cake for his birthday*

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April 19th, 2008

10:27 am - Saturday laziness Reading a friend's book with a cup of tea. Not productive, but very pleasant :) In other news, a review of the Shimmer art issue by Lois Tilton (she didn't like my story, but I did know beforehand it wasn't going to be to her taste). Found the complete English translation of the Mahabharata. Still unsure how I'm going to go about reading it, because my eyes are going to give up on it if I do it on the computer screen. On the other hand, each of the 18 books is about 400 pages of dense text... EDIT: my amazon order has arrived!!! Two books about daily life in the Aztec and the Maya World (Handbook to Life in the Aztec World, and Handbook to Life in the Ancient Maya World, both published by Oxford Press). After flipping through the Aztec one, I really, really wish I'd had it to hand when writing the Acatl novel. It has maps of everything (one of the valley of Mexico with a scale and the main routes, one of the city of Tenochtitlan, and one of the Sacred Precinct), reference charts on the calendar, the main gods... *sigh* Where was this book when I was writing "Servant of the Underworld"? (on the plus side, if there's a book 2, I can add lots of nifty ideas). Current Mood: bouncy

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April 17th, 2008

07:54 pm - Awesomeness I've learnt that I've sold my alt-history novelette "Butterfly, Falling at Dawn", to Interzone, which makes it my fourth sale to this awesome magazine. Featuring Aztec immigrants, holograms, and a corpse in the nude (when in doubt, always put a dead naked girl in the story *g*). I'm psyched. Going through the novel to catch the diction drops. This is not as awesome, but it has to be done :) And I'm preparing for Villa Diodati, an English-language workshop for Continental Europeans, the second edition of which will take place in Ile-de-France next week. Much writing, cooking, and socialising will take place. *happy writer* Current Mood: pleased

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April 14th, 2008

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April 13th, 2008

11:02 pm - Weekend Moving stuff (amazing the number of books you can accumulate over your teenage + university years...). Writing a bit. Editing a bit. I officially hate synopses, especially the one-page variety in Courier New. I think I'm going to bed. -a 40-day very nice rejection from SH on "They Come Bearing Gifts", basically saying that the story wasn't in the right tone for them (too melodramatic, a fact I suspected before sending it to them) but that it was still very engaging and one of their favourites they had seen from me. -a 30-day rejection from Asimov's on "Tribe-Soul, God-Soul": the story was "sweet and very well-written, but not quite original enough for me". Fair enough. My submissions stock is depleted; I need to send batches out, but the agent hunt is starting to be a bit time-consuming... Current Mood: busy

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April 11th, 2008

08:41 pm - I has novelette (sigh) Why can't I write short? Writing the novel has got me back in the "write long stories set in very complicated universes..." Ah well. Anyway, I have a new Rahani novelette: ( Both Sides of the Divide (Snippet) ) More preparation for the novel, I guess (which is putting forth additional twists by the hour, even though I don't actually have a blasted idea of who's responsible for the trouble Rahani is going through). Posted it at LH, over in the Polish Challenge. We shall see. It's a first draft and leaking water a bit, but at least I got the story done :) Current Mood: accomplished

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April 10th, 2008

09:04 pm - It's up :) IGMS issue 8 is up, with my story "Horus Ascending". Yay! Current Mood: cheerful

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