BJJ - Day two. ( Read more... )

Hug hug huggy hugs hug

I am really really curious about take-down class now.

For many, Black Friday is a day to be dreaded. A day when average fun of the mill Americans turn into demonic consumerists. After all, wasn’t it just last year that some poor soul was trampled outside a Walmart on their righteous quest for cheap electronics? A martyr, I say.

I, myself, am a diehard Black Friday shopper. I have my flak jacket ready, my butterfly knife ready to whip out and my credit card warming by the stove. We’ll be heading out at 2:00 A.M (no shit), not-so-fresh from our tryptophan comas and snarling for deals. Old Navy opens at 3:00 and promises Lego Rock Band free with purchase. From there it’s a melee. I’m planning on live twittering with photos, so if you’re not following, you’ll miss out on the horrors, the blood, the tears and the laughter.

But now, to ease your Black Friday shopping plans a bit, here are the…

BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING LISTS FOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T SUCK!!!

So there you have it. Everything you need to fill your holidays with cheer.

Happy Thanksgiving Y’all!!!!

Originally published at Mark Henry. You can comment here or there.

On Friday they're doing an all-day show called "Black Friday."

Yes, they're playing retro and current GOTH all day.

WIN! :D

The Run-Off Poll has closed! The following writers found a chair survived the Run-Off and will be going on to Week 4:

azuire
calamityroo
raven_tiger
youraugustine



Which means, unfortunately, that starriheavens is out for this month. Starri, feel free to write a Just for Fun anyway!

We're heading into the final poll for November! And in the meantime, a Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it!!

The first is rice noodles with prawns, mange tout, and seaweed with a soy sauce, sweet chilli and lime dressing, with steamed pak choi with soy and ginger and gyoza with gyoza dipping sauce



The second is egg fried rice with chicken tenders, a rabbit of tonkatsu sauce and soy and ginger courgettes




( Pak Choi Recipe )

I once saw a squirrel purposely do back flips in an effort to part me from a portion of my lunch. He would flip, stop expectantly, then flip again, gradually getting a little closer. It worked (though I have to admit, he was not much pleased with what I had to offer. He frankly looked a little disgusted that he had gone through such effort.)

I often feel like that squirrel (the flipping part, not the disgust ;).

As authors, our words seem only to mean half as much until they are read and appreciated by others. Achieving that can require more effort than the writing itself. It really can. But you know what, if you want more than just a book on the shelf, you have to put out that effort. Now I know this can be difficult given that I know more introverted authors than extraverted, but getting out from behind your keyboard and into the public eye is a necessary step to bringing attention to your work.

For about nine years now I have been driving up and down the East Coast on the convention circuit and to various author events I have arranged. I can’t tell you how many more friends I have, let alone fans of my work due to these efforts. But don’t mistake me. This isn’t just about waving your work around until someone buys it, author events (well, the successful ones, anyway) go a long way to revitalizing your passion as a writer. At least it does for me. Whether I spend a few minutes or a few hours talking to one person or a room of people about my process and various works I walk away with an energy boost like you wouldn’t believe. Some of my best writing is done after such events.

It’s about reconnecting with yourself, your passion, and your audience. It is often mistakenly construed that writing is a solitary venture. In truth, the real life of your writing is found in your interactions with others. I get a little scary, I think, when I am talking to a writer just getting started about how and why I did various things in my stories. I have benefited by the reminder alone of why I love what I do. Sometimes we forget what it’s all about…until we see our excitement reflected in the eyes of our readers.

Some authors forget this. Some get caught up in their own importance, distancing themselves from their audience, alienating others in the profession. I strive to remember that the only measure of my success is how connected I am with the reader. The only place prima donnas belong is ballet.

For more wisdom on writing, please visit the blog of my friend and co-editor, L. Jagi Lamplighter at http://arhyalon.livejournal.com.

Promotional News:

Danielle Ackley-McPhail and Neal Levin of Dark Quest Books featured in Publisher's Weekly Article:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6708822.html

TODAY’S QUESTION: What are you grateful for?

I am grateful for all the many ways God has blessed me: my health, my family, for some measure of success as an author. For the safety and security I enjoy each day. That I have a job that allows me to provide for my family.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~3/o5RKfNW0S50/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/?p=193243

Cory Doctorow's Head in Space Being Assembled by Dinosaurs Being Explained by Frank Wu

Video shot by Cory at Philcon of me talking a bout this painting!

http://www.alisonkent.com/blog/2009/11/25/not-to-brag-or-anything-but-i-am/

http://www.alisonkent.com/blog/?p=4991

WITH EXTREME PLEASURE is the NUMBER ONE bestselling contemporary romance at Amazon, whoo-hoo, at least for the next five minutes or so, but I’ve captured the moment for posterity. (It’s down to 20-something on the Kindle list now, having reached #7 there, but I love seeing it on the main list, yay!)

Also, it’s the NUMBER FIVE bestselling romance overall; again, in five minutes things will change, but I have PROOF that it’s almost as in demand as New Moon! ::snort::

Publishers Weekly reports on Harlequin Horizons' name change to DellArte Press.

The thing that irks me slightly about the article is that it makes it look as if the RWA yanked Harlequin's credentials because they started a self-publishing arm, whereas, in fact, to the best of my knowledge, the RWA does not object to self-publishing. What they object to--what they objected to in Harlequin's case--is vanity publishing. (SFWA's statement makes this explicit.)

It is possible that the difference between these two things is not self-evident. So, if you are confused, allow me to offer a crash course.

The standard publishing model, the model under which I have published books with Ace, Prime, and Tor, goes like this: publisher pays author for the right to print their book. Revenue earned from book is shared between publisher and author, once the advance has earned out.*

Self-publishing is when an author chooses to publish a book him- or herself. That means the author pays to have the book printed and bound; the author pays for cover art, if any; the author does whatever marketing there is; the author tries to get the book in bookstores. Also, the author does the editing and copy-editing and all the rest of it. The author does all the work; the author pays all the expenses; the author gets all the money from the sale of the book. It's called self-publishing because there is no publisher involved. Just the author and a service like Lulu.com. (Notice that Lulu.com, which offers services like editing and cover design, does not anywhere describe itself as a publisher. They are making money off self-publishing, but they aren't pretending that having Lulu Books on the spine would mean a damn thing.)

Vanity publishing is where an author pays a publisher to print their book. In theory, the payment includes or can include editing, copy-editing, packaging, and possibly even marketing and distribution, but these may also be more or less sketchy because--and here is the sticking point--vanity publishing is frequently a scam. (I don't say always because I don't know for a fact that all vanity publishers are scam-artists. But I know that it very frequently turns out that they are.) The central objection to Harlequin Horizons (as Jackie Kessler explains in detail) is that it is scamming aspiring authors into believing that paying Harlequin to publish their book is almost as good as being paid by Harlequin to publish their book. It is trying to convince aspiring authors that the form of being published (i.e., having your novel printed as a "real book" with formatting and binding and, as for example, DellArte Press on the spine) is (a.) indistinguishable from the actuality of being published (with advances and marketing and distribution) and (b.) something you should have to pay for.

And no. It's not.

Now, if you have written a novel or a treatise on horsemanship in the American Civil War, or if your Cousin Norbert has written a history of the family, or your Aunt Marilyn has put together a book of all your grandmother and great-grandmother's incredible pie recipes, and you want to have that novel or treatise or history or recipe book printed up as a "real book" with enough copies so that everyone in the family can have one, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and nothing wrong with paying a publishing service, or even a vanity press, to do that for you. You know what you're paying for, and you're getting what you're paying for. Likewise, if you have a novel and you want to self-publish, knowing what kind of back-breaking work you're in for if you want to sell more than the ten copies to family and friends that we could probably all sell ...

[Ahem. Sorry. Girl Scout Cookie sales flashback. I'll be all right in a minute.]

Essentially, if you know what you're in for and you want to do it, more power to you.

Vanity publishing is a scam because it's trying to pretend that what authors are paying it for is the same thing that standard publishers pay authors for, which (a.) is not true and (b.) is wrong even if it were true. The rule of thumb here, as always in publishing, is that money flows toward the author. Anyone who comes to you and says they'll publish you if you pay them is trying to scam you. (Yes, Harlequin Horizons DellArte Press, I am still looking at you. Unless Harlequin is going to stop referring people to its vanity subsidiary in its rejection letters--which I did not notice them promising anywhere.)

That is what RWA and SFWA and MWA are objecting to and that is why what Harlequin is doing is reprehensible.



---
*Basically, when a publisher buys a book, they are betting that they will make at least $X on it--$X being the amount of the advance they pay the author. When the book makes $X, that's called "earning out." After this magical event has occurred, authors begin receiving royalties--but remember, the publisher paid them BEFORE the book began to earn money.

And sometimes the book doesn't make $X. Of my books, only Mélusine, The Bone Key, and A Companion to Wolves have, as of this writing, sold through. That is the risk the publisher takes.

Once again, I'm pleased to note that I was invited to participate in a Mind Meld discussion by the fine folks over at SF Signal. This time, the question they asked was, "Do you read eBooks? If not, why not? If so, what are the pros and cons of eBook reading? What device(s) do you use?"

Participants include (deep breath): Rachel Swirsky, Rose Fox, Jeremiah Tolbert, Dominic Green, Fabio Fernandes, Paul Levinson, Tim Lebbon, Jeff VanderMeer, Paul Melko, Ellen Datlow, and me.

What surprised me the most was the number of people who don't read eBooks, and why they don't.

Go check it out:

Mind Meld: The Pros and Cons of eBooks

All right, I give in.
After 15 or so years in the society and constant complaints that IN PERIOD EVERYONE WORE A HAT and so EVERYONE IN THE SCA SHOULD WEAR A HAT.
I give in.
I just have to decide whether I should wear a mennonite covering or clip one of those tiny mantillas for pre-Vatican II to my hair?
And should it be PINK or ORANGE?

Well, I am not finishing it this month, which, to be honest, does not bother me in the least. NaNo, for me is all about solidarity, struggling with the folk who are going to try to get 50K in a month that includes Thanksgiving (happy, to you who celebrate. There's another post in this, but we'll get to that), which, let's face it, eats most of a week you can't afford to lose if you are not a high volume scribbler. And I am not. Only sometimes, I am. Not this month. This NaNo was also to get me motivated enough to pick up where I left off and keep running with it. And I am. I also got to use it as an excuse to step back from Autumn War and get a little perspective on that, which has proved *very* valuable. All in all, a very good experience, this year. Now I just have to finish some things...

ugh. I have ot figure out what I need to bring this weekend. I tend to over pack somewhat. I am pressed for space, that is certain. I need a truck. I am thinking about taking a collapsable table instead of the big box, but if I have to carry stuff anyway...there may not be a point.

I'm looking forward to the elevation, I'm keen on seeing how other Baronies do it. I'm keen on how celebratory and renewal these events are.

I have to go to Lablaws. I have a bunch of photos to process and a few items to pick up. I have a list! Its a good idea to have a list.

off to lawblaws then BJJ! *squeak*

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~3/e9Th_ddybPI/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/?p=209282

One of the things I discovered when I first got elected to Brookline Town Meeting back in 2001 was the role of money in governing.

This is really very Government 101, but after looking over town and library budgets, I came to realize that all the flashy issues that come up in government are really just subsets of the budget.

In short, governing is figuring out where you're going to get the money from, and what you're going to spend the money on.

Why am I bringing this up now? I just read a very thoughtful post by docorion, called Revenue and Government Programs. At the moment, many people are asking their state representatives to preserve an important public safety program, SANE. But, having served on the SANE board a while back, docorion is well aware of how expensive the program is. As he says, "State services cost money." So, if you're going to contact your state representatives, he suggests also letting them know that you're willing to pay for it, with taxes. He says, "[L]et your state rep or senator know that you're willing to pay more in order to save this service, or any other service you would rather see left uncut. It will make you more likely to be heard, and it's the right thing to do."

In 2008, Brookline had a Proposition 2 1/2 override vote, and as a Library Trustee I endorsed it because I knew what would happen to library services if the vote failed. We were looking at cutting back on children's programs and branch hours. (We even noted that closing one of the branches completely would fix our potential budget shortfall, but we rejected that out of hand.) Many patrons were upset at the possibility that we might cut back on things that they considered essential. And to all of them, I pointed out that without the override, something would have to happen to balance the library's budget. Thankfully, the citizens of the town understood, and overwhelmingly approved the override.

If we want good government services, we have to find the money to pay for them.

I'm glad to see docorion (and others) making this point, because the antinomy is that all of us as citizens want two things that contradict each other: excellent government services and lower taxes. But you get what you pay for.

Dear NaNoWriMo,

We're through.

I know that you have enough people who love you and care for you that this break-up won't be difficult for you (Last collective word count of all NaNo'ers, everywhere, was 1,776,482,205 words), so really don't have a problem telling you exactly what I think of you.

You're a bad concept, NaNo. You suck.

No, no. Let me back up. I can be reasonable. Just because I'm feeling vehement and emotional about you ruining my life . . .doesn't mean I should be unfair.

You are not a bad concept. You're a bad concept for me, NaNo. This is why: you make me write crap, NaNo. You make me make bad novel decisions. You take away my ability to brainstorm between chapters. You make me rush through characterization. You make me pack filler in that will only get ripped out later, having taught me nothing about my novel. You make me into a bad writer.

You know what hurts me the most, NaNo? I want to write something meaningful. Something with subtext and theme. That's the reason I write, really. And you took that away from me. How could I possibly contemplate the greater picture when I was constantly chasing word count? What kind of conceptual boyfriend are you anyway? That you would make me write superficial tripe?

Oh, for weeks I believe your spiel: that it was okay that we were bad in the sack together now, that we'd get better with revising. But I see through your lies, baby. We will never get to sweet, sweet passionate love on the beach from where we are here. Basically, if we played the game your way, I'd end up rewriting every single word I wrote.

So this is me saying, I've been cheating on you. Since November 15th, I threw on the brakes, reread what I'd written, cut out huge parts, and started writing my novel the way I like to. And the difference is that now I have 23,000 words that I love. Instead of 50,000 words that I can't stand to read over.

But it took me a long time to get to that point, NaNo. Because you made me feel like I was turning my back on some great goal that I'd made. You hit me where it hurt, NaNo; you know that I don't like to give up a goal once I've made it. So here's where I say thanks. You taught me that not all goals are good goals. That some are picked up out of principle and aren't worth pursuing. You reminded me of what I used to always tell people in conjunction with my little goals speech: that you should choose your battles wisely.

And you aren't a good battle, NaNo. You're just a bad boyfriend and a lousy literary lay. I'm taking my Secret Novel and getting the hell out of this relationship before you can hurt us anymore! We'll be fine without you. Nay, better off without you! When you see me walking down the street with the hardcover edition of Secret Novel in 2012, looking fine, fine, fine with its deep theme and subtle characterization, I hope it makes you throw up a little in your mouth.

Oh, and happy Thanksgiving.

50,000 superficial words of love,

Maggie