• 13:19 am enjoying just sitting here watching IC and RC snuggled up together, sleeping #
• 16:10 IC showing symptoms of worms. Solution: worm tablet. What's more, I have some! What's even more, he took it without a murmur! yay #

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I have now posted my episode on VCON. I had a blast and hope you all enjoy it. I had to cut out the Geeks On interview because it would have pushed the episode over an hour and I wanted to save size and bandwidth. The Geeks On interview will have it's own episode very soon.

You can now download the episode to your computer or mobile media device to watch at your convenience. I am offering both Windows Media (.wmv) and Quicktime (.mp4) formats for maximum compatibility.

203 — VCON 2009

Title: By Proxy
Chapter title: Louie Louie
Author: jedhoover
Genre: Fantasy / Humor (?)
Chapter : 2/?
Disclaimer: Some cursing. Maybe portraying God in a bad way?
Chapter summary: Hamied and the gang meets an alien.
Author's note: The song is "Brother Louie" by Modern Talking (I have an old soul)



( Saturday night's alright for fighting? )

I promise this is about original fiction!

How many you are also fanfiction writers? And how many of you that are have Secret Santa exchanges in your fandoms (or participate in a multi-fandom exchange ala Yuletide)?

The main question: How many of you would be willing to participate in a Secret Santa exchange for original fiction?

It would work along the same lines as most of the fanfic-based exchanges with one exception: instead of offering/requesting fandoms and pairings, you'd offer/request genres and genders of pairings (like, for example, requesting an action fic with a male/female hookup at the end).

I don't have all the details set up (since I'm aiming to make it a Christmas exchange, it wouldn't open until next year), just this basic idea, and I wanted to propose it to a collective of original fic writers before I took the time.

• 07:22 Off to Londonderry for some ISO 9001 recertification auditing; nice and local pretty much all week.
• 21:05 could use a good night's sleep...

(not that anyone cares!)
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The forecasters are saying we'll hit -18F tonight, but that's nowhere near Butte's ambient temperature of -30F.  Yes, you heard me right. MINUS THIRTY BELOW.  Now, I've experienced -25F or so, but -30F has got to be really friggin cold.  My imagination doesn't even go there anymore.  My guess is that it froze somewhere along the way.

Now, before you start calling me wuss (and I can hear you Alaskans shouting insults at me), I've been in some pretty gnarly weather. I've raced sled dogs in Idaho, Minnesota, Wyoming and Colorado in temperatures that would send Frosty the Snowman to a sauna. I've been in whiteouts, snowstorms and other weather that left you wondering if you got a free micropeel skin abrasion with mushing. I've been in the real Southpark, Colorado with wind so bad that it burst the windows on the only store around.  The wind speeds were clocked at 75 to 90 mph at that time. But the concept of -30F plus wind has left me speechless.  Or rather, glad I'm indoors and warm and not out in it.

On the other hand (or paw), my Malamutes think this is the best weather ever.  They've been complaining how their monkeys keep the house too hot and prefer to lie outside on the snow and feel the cool wind through their hair. 

So, while the Malamutes enjoy the cold weather, I've been working on projects.  For the first time ever, I've actually gotten to use a book on Heraldry for an article.  Being a geek all these years have finally paid off and I've been able to work on articles about things like family crests and nobility titles of the 13th century for actual money. It's kind of cool because I'm producing content for a very well known website as a special project.  For some reason, they thought I'd be perfect for doing the work (I had mentioned I had done a fair amount of research into things), but it might have been the feedback scoring and the fact I've written so many books.  Anyway, the money is pretty good for content providers.  It's nice to know that the useless information isn't so useless after all.

After a feeble nap, the men stopped their hollow dancing.

Elina hated us today.

Inside the guard house, I found the second prime minister.

~~Familiarity grows where it is planted.~~


Word of the Day: remanet

Hi everyone,

My name is Lisa and I'm the editor of an online literary publication called 'Maverick'. We're currently looking for fiction writers whose work could be included in our magazine. If you have any work that you'd like to see reach a wider audience, or be used in a more commercial format then we'd love to see it.

Our magazine is non-profit, so sadly I would not be able to offer commission for your work, but you would of course receive full credit and copyright for your contribution.

Our first issue was released in December and has been well received, and I would like our next issue to be a similar success. If you wish to have a look, it's available at: http://www.projectmaverick.eu.

Thanks for reading,
Lisa

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Kevin Weiss, President and CEO of Author Solutions Inc., has issued a video statement addressing the responses by RWA, SFWA, MWA, and NINC to ASI’s recent partnerships with commercial publishers in launching pay-to-publish divisions.

According to ASI’s press release about the video statement,

Weiss takes exception to these guilds’ position that only traditionally-published books can succeed. “There are plenty of books in traditional publishing today that just don’t make it; it’s a hits business,” Weiss said. “It’s why the publishing industry is going through a transformation today and the consumer has everything to say about what is good content and what isn’t good content. To say that in order for a book to make it in the marketplace it has to blessed by a traditional publisher doesn’t make any sense in 2009.”

Which of course is not at all what the various “guilds’” statements said, but oh well. Weiss also scolds the “guilds” for being backward-looking, but does not address the conflict-of-interest and deceptive advertising concerns raised by several of the statements.

(Both Harlequin and Thomas Nelson are mentioned in the video, but the press release names only Harlequin–likely because Nelson has not, to date, been the target of the same level of criticism. This is unfair, in my view–I see no reason why, since Harlequin has been pilloried for DellArte Press, Nelson should be getting practically a free pass with West Bow Press.)

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