Two things...

Location: Orthanc
Music: Mountain Crossing - Shackleton OST
Mood: Pleased


First, Lynn Viehl - author of the Stardoc and Darkyn series, will be running her Left Behind & Loving It week of virtual workshops. These are taking place at the same time as the Romance Divas workshops and RWA's National Conference. There are some great workshops in her line-up, so go check out the post!



Secondly, (and probably only of interest to me) I'm nearly on holiday! Yay! Just had a succesful school visit at work which went really well and was a good way to round off the week, so I'm feeling nicely upbeat. All I need now is about 18 hours of sleep and I should be right. I'm not going anywhere as chum #1 can't take time off in the summer due to being a children's librarian, but that's okay. I'll just lounge around the house until the dogs plague me into taking them for (another) walk.
I have writing and editing to do and no need to get up at 05:30 for work so I'm hoping it will be a lovely combination of relaxing and productive.

Romance Divas: Not Going to Conference Conference

So, you can't go to the RWA conference this year? Well, don't fret for long. Romance Divas is hosting their annual NGTCC (Not Going To Conference Conference) and it's going to be fun-filled. Already they've got great guest spots lined up, including: Josh Lanyon, Rowan Mcbride, Jet Mykles and Shayla Kersten, Carrie Jones, Marley Gibson, Linnea Sinclair, Patti O'Shea, Ona Russel, Steve Hockingsmith, Joey W. Hill and Sasha White.

There will be workshops for just about every genre, from Young Adult to Erotic to Historical. Plus, a workshop on Deep POV, one on going from e-publishing to NY, and a Q&A on how avoid and deal with burnout. And there's bound to be a few surprises, too. icon_wink.gif

The NGTCC kicks off July 14th and runs until July 18th. If you're not already a member of Romance Divas, all you have to do is go to the website and register! Best of all--it's FREE!

Oh, yeah...

White rabbits.

E-books: fair price or overinflated?

J.A. Konrath had an interesting post last month on the cost of e-books, delving into issues with DRM and publishers seeming inability to move (in a timely fashion) with new and emerging technologies.

The rules of supply and demand don't work in a digital world, because the supply is unlimited. You don't fight piracy with weapons. You fight piracy with cost and convenience.

Personally, I don't - and won't - buy e-books that cost the same (or near enough) to the hardback price. An author whose work I love had a new book out in hardback last year. I had all the others in paperback and couldn't really justfy the hardback expense, especially as hbks are less portable so I thought I'd get the e-book version to read there and then, and get the paperback when it came out a year later. Well. The e-book cost exactly the same as the hardback so needless to say, I waited the year until the paperback came out. I could have got the hardback secondhand for less, but I wanted it new - nice shiny book for me/ money for the author = win. But, if only the cost of the e-book version had been the same as (or less than) the cost of the mass market paperback, I would have willingly paid for both versions. EpicFail.
E-publishers get the model right, but (it appears to me) that print publishers are missing an opportunity.

Weekend jollification

Listening to: Infinite White - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Mood: Cream-crackered

Visited the paterfamilias this weekend up in not-so-sunny Newcastle; they got all the rain my allotment needs. ::grrrr::
Had a nice time, though. Went to Borders as per usual and actually found some books to buy (in the last few months visits to Borders stores generally have been disappointing stock-wise.) They are still engaged in epic Locus-fail, mind. February's issue is still on the shelf with no sign of anything more recent. I may have to give in and subscribe. ::sighs dramatically::
Along with the books I bought, Dad lent me some of his so I have now added to the Tower of To-Be-Read: Acacia, and The Accidental Sorcerer. (Actually, it's quite fortunate that the TBR books are not, actually, in a single tower. Otherwise someone would come home one day and find me with my feet sticking out from under a mass of books - a bit like the Wicked Witch.

I also managed to get a DVD of Brazil by Terry Gilliam - I love this film. Taped it off the tv aeons ago and when the tape died never got round to getting a copy, but as I was wandering round the shop there it was. Right at short-person height. And cheap! So I caved, and at some point this week will indulge in dystopic wierdness with glee.

Also, despite being on a visitation, I managed to get some work done on worldbuilding over the weekend as well as fitting in time for a swim, so actually it was all rather productive. That doesn't happen often!

Currently reading: Testament of Youth - Vera Brittain
Editing: Sokoll's Hawks
Other: YAUF worldbuilding

The bathtub of perserverance

Interesting post (complete with diagrams) from Brad Torgersen (via jay lake) comparing a writer's persistence and practice with the (slow) filling of a bath.
Good stuff.

Back to the Future?

Mood: Cheerful
Listening to: Unwell - Matchbox Twenty

Went to the cinema on Saturday and saw Drag Me To Hell by the Raimi brothers? Cousins?
I have to say that I felt as though I'd been sucked right back to the 1980s, it felt/ came across very much as a film of that time. I laughed rather than being scared, and there were a couple of extremely gross moments. The best bit was the sinister, talking goat. I won't be seeing it again, nor will I be getting it on DVD, but it whiled away a couple of hours.

Next week - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen! (Explosions; running; explosions; rinse, repeat.)

Adventures in Cooking...

Mood: Hungry
Listening to: The Most Dangerous Predator - Carter Burwell

Removing unidentifiable brown goo from the freezer and hoping that it is, in fact, the remains of the chicken stew you made, froze, and forgot about. Thankfully it was, although it was the really salty version as I cheated and used stock cubes, which when combined with copious amounts of Worcester sauce meant that there was lots of water drinking required.
Chum #1 made bananas in greek youghurt sprinkled with dark muscovado sugar for dessert (we saw it on Market Kitchen) - you shove everything together with the sugar on top, stick it in the fridge for an hour or so and the sugar melts. Tasted lovely!

Working today. >:( Should get home about 17:00hrs and then it's off to the pictures to (probably) see Drag Me To Hell. You'll like it, apparently, if you like Evil Dead/ Shaun of the Dead humour-wise.