Random Neural Meepings

I wrote a sad-sack catch-you-up post yesterday. I don't think I'll post it.

 Minion sitting on me yesterday when I wrote my sad sack post.


Instead, some random neural firings...

* Enjoying my Storywonk class: Making Magic. (I've linked to the cache cause I think they're updating the page now that the class has begun.) Did I mention this class? Lani Diane Rich gives this and another class called Discovery that are related, and that focus on writing aspects not usually covered in books and courses. I paired up with another Betty and got the classes half price. Making Magic is about filling the inspiration tank before you start writing, so that the whole thing flows, you hit less dry spots. Eg. Having a soundtrack of about 20 songs that represent your characters, setting etc., that you can listen to both when planning the book, and if you stall out while writing it.

So that's what I've been working on this week, on and off. Well, I've always had soundtracks--you may have noticed I listen to a lot of music. ;-) But I hadn't yet collected a lot of music for this one. Just general atmospheric--pow wow music, francophone songs, etc. But now I'm trying to pin stuff down, and at the same time pin down my protagonists. My heroine remains elusive. I hates her.

By the way, Writers' Digest sells their back issues as digital downloads (and print of course). Thought I'd mention that for the writers out there. I had a good issue from the library and didn't want to scan the whole stupid thing--just bought it instead.

* Watched Palm Beach Story. It was entertaining, but terribly plotted. What was Preston Sturges thinking? lol

* I'm finally going to get a cell phone. Can you believe it? I've always told people: The idea that I can be reached at all times horrified me! But only a prepaid one. I'm not that committed yet.

* I'm going off Topomax, so I won't have anything to blame Life on anymore. I'm down from 6 pills to 2 and pretty happy about it. It didn't make a big difference to my headaches, and it's had the worst side effects of anything I've tried. They would have been tolerable if they had a big result on my headaches, but otherwise they stank. The fatigue was terrible. I was taking 4 pills before bed, and 2 during the day. And even before taking the day ones, I was ready to go back to bed after 9 hours of sleep.

...On the bright side, I would fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I missed that last night when I had a lot on my mind. Most of my life it's taken my an hour min. to fall asleep, and now I've got to re-adapt! Huff. Elavil (which I'm still on) used to put me to sleep, but I guess my body's used to it. However, better that than Rip Van Winkleism.

What I'm really looking forward to is NO MORE PINS AND NEEDLES in my feet! Holy mother of a sainted dog that was driving me out of my frikking mind!!! I couldn't leave my foot in the same position more than 5 minutes without getting the nastiest p&n you can imagine. I'd taken to wearing crocs all the time

because the bumpy soles helped the p&n go away, but I hate wearing sandals all the time, and it didn't prevent them, just made it less severe. (I even got p&n in my knee caps. That is the weirdest feeling.) And what was I going to do in winter? I was planning to order croc liners for my slippers, that's what. But that's still cold. >:-(

* Visited with friend Onthatmidnightstreet, who was in town. One of my few in-life writer friends, so she's that's one reason she's fun to talk to. Also, she's very funny. And we had zee girl talk. Not the goofy frivolous kind, but... well, we try to keep our senses of humor even as we moan about terrible weather conditions (cf. The Brönte Sisters, below.)

* Finally finished the first book of Louise Rennison's new teen series. Her first series--about a British teen who can't dampen her loud personality and just has to learn to appreciate it, and her insane cat, and insane little sister--was brilliant. Funniest thing I'd read in ages. This series has a less eccentric heroine, and there was no plot for the first half of the book, so it was slow. But in the second half she starts finding herself as an artist and the book flew by with the usual Rennison speed. Once again the theme is about accepting one's own oddness, of which I approves.

It takes place at an arts school in Yorkshire, so there's lots of good Yorkshire jokes, including a moody boy named Cain (cause it's the moors, there has to be a moody boy). I don't usually root for the bad boys, but he's hilarious, I hope she ends up with him. He's in a band of course and sings songs like "Shut Up, Mardy Bum" (mardy bum is my favorite new expression), and "Girlfriend in the River, I Know, I Know It's Really Serious."

I decided I am going to really observe Cain and base my Heathcliff on him.

...Cain hit the microphone. He kicked the stand. He pointed at people. He even kicked Bob's special speaker with "Wizard" written on it. Bob went and stood by it with a broom.

At the end, Cain came forward and said huskily, "That's it, leave us alone."

...And then they all went off fighting.

Amazing.

From the book's glossary: The Brönte Sisters - Em, Chazza and Anne. ... They wrote Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and loads of other stuff about terrible weather conditions and moaning.  dunderwhelp - A polite Yorkshire way of saying: "You are an absolute disgrace of a person. Look at your knees."


* Connie Willis won the Hugo award. Her 11th. She won the Nebula earlier this year, and the Hugo is the fan voted one (these are the two top sci fi fantasy awards.) She's a history nut, but also a total sci fi geek, completely versed in the classics. When I went to Worldcon (the big convention, which was luckily held in Montreal one year) a photographer (and Neil Gaiman-Amanda Palmer buddy) was taking photos of science fiction fantasy fans. And she presented herself at his booth! She's lovely.

My hubby made me get a picture with her, cause I would have been too shy to ask without him. You see the stunned look on my face? (My t-shirt is from my brother, it says: Chewie is my Co-pilot.)

From the Guardian:

Connie Willis's gripping portrait of London during the Blitz has won the American author a remarkable 11th Hugo award.

Willis's two-volume time travel sequence, Blackout and All Clear, was voted winner of science fiction's most prestigious prize by members of the World Science Fiction Society. With 10 Hugos already to her name, Willis beat a female-heavy shortlist which also featured Lois McMaster Bujold, Mira Grant and NK Jemesin, with British author Ian McDonald the only male writer in the running. Her win means the Hugo best novel prize has now been won by a female writer 16 times in 57 years.

Opening with a quote from TS Eliot's Four Quartets, "History is now and England", Willis traces the stories of a group of time-travelling historians from Oxford. Polly goes to London, to evaluate the lives of shopgirls during the Blitz, Mike to Dunkirk, Merope to the countryside to observe evacuees. Armed with their future knowledge of when and where bombs will fall, they should be entirely safe – but then, one by one, they discover they are unable to travel back to the future. "It's hard to know what to praise more," wrote the Washington Post about Blackout. "Every detail rings true. Still, all of Willis's knowledge is subsumed in her bravura storytelling: Blackout is, by turns, witty, suspenseful, harrowing and occasionally comic to the point of slapstick." In May this year, the novels also won Willis her seventh Nebula award.

"I consider you all my family," she told the convention of science fiction authors and fans. "You have welcomed me into your hearts from the time when I was very young and you have been nothing but kind and accepting and supportive of me through my entire career and my life. I can't think of a better place to have spent my life and I am so happy about this."