Have you got that Friday feeling?

I haven't... yet.

Partly because BB keeps waking me up, wanting to go outside at ohGodo'clock in the morning - so much so that I had to shut him downstairs at 0430 this morning because I just had to sleep, and it was the third time he'd woken me up. B was never like that as a puppy, maybe it's a boy thing?

The other reason for my lack of Friday Wootness! is that I'm working tomorrow until 13:00hrs. Erk! But, I am off for the Bank Holiday and not back at work until Thursday - yay!

I've decided I'm going to have a stab at the Cat Shifter novella for Samhain so I will hopfully get a good run on in those few days. I'll outline this weekend and then go from there.

baby!

Simon & Schuster come under fire...

The Authors Guild has alerted its membership that S&S's new contract language would mean that the publisher would 'retain rights to a book for the entire length of copyright' (Milliot, PW, 5/17/2007)

Following on from this, the AG reports that S&S have backtracked slightly, accusing the AG of overreacting but also saying that the rights reversions issue will be looked at on a book-by-book basis.

Read your contracts carefully, talk to a contracts lawyer (or your agent) if you don't understand something and don't sign something if you don't understand what everything means or you're not happy with what's on the contract.

Thanks to Alison for the heads-up.

Also, for a different take, have a look at Juno Editor/ Paula Guran's blog entry on this.

Last day before the weekend

I'm off tomorrow (work, that is) while the car is being done to and then I'm off to the pater's all things being equal.

I had an unpleasant series of thoughts last night. I'd finished typing up what I'd done so far on the short I'm working on and then thought of how it could go better in first person, with completely different characters and set in a completely different country! Does this mean it's not going well? ;-) Sigh. I'm not changing it. I'll finish it, then if I think it's unmitigated crap I'll either do a re-write or stick it in the drawer of 'work to draw lessons from, but that should never see the light of day'!

On a happier note, the visit to my papa's will mean plenty of reading time so I can get stuck into Lara Adrian 's 'Kiss of Midnight' (and hopefully the new Jayne Ann Krentz (The River Knows - writing as Amanda Quick) that I swore I wouldn't buy in trade size, but would wait for the mass-market version will arrive tomorrow, in trade format, before I go.

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Side Note 1:
There've been posts and comments pinging their way across the blogosphere about the e-publisher Triskelion and their un-invitation to attend RWA here. Quite a bit from both sides of the debate at DearAuthor (all the entries are from the 16th of May) and the comments on SmartBitches are quite interesting as well.

Side Note 2:
Jessica over at BookEnds, LLC has put together a (brief) sub-genre encyclopaedia to 'give you a better idea and understanding of what publishing professionals are talking about when they mention a specific sub-genre.' Click here for the full post. (the comments are pretty interesting too.)

Birthday Tribute to Alan Johnston

It is 66 days since BBC correspondent Alan Johnston was abducted by a group of armed men in Gaza. Thursday is his birthday.

- By John Williams, World Editor, BBC News, Jerusalem

Read the whole entry here

Tired, precioussss.

So. Glorious, relaxing Bank Holiday + 2 days?

Well, initially.

The BH itself went well. It was the two extra days I took that completely left my control. Pseudo-nephew no.2 was ill and I was recruited to hold the fort while p-n no.1 was collected from school. Then I helped out round the house and got home late.

Following day, same pattern (but I started earlier) although I did manage to read half a book and do another page of my short.

My respect for those who run their lives round children has increased. Hats off to you ladies & gents!

My state of knackeredness was not improved by BB - who decided that he wanted to go outside 4 times on Monday night, Tuesday night and Wednesday (I'm dreading tonight - but it's not as if I can ignore him - I'm the one who has to clean the carpet if I do, so getting up is the lesser evil (but eeeevil it is - the only time you should be up at 04:40hrs is if you've stayed up (to read/ write or party), you're going on holiday or you've got a hot date. Toilet duty - no.))

Le sigh.

I will try to post during the weeks that follow (weekends will be out as I'm away and Internet access is unlikely)

Donning super-attributes to

attack recalcitrant storylines!



Link courtesy of Patti O'Shea's blog - create your own superhero(ine) here

No music today, no temperature (warm inside, windy outside)

Mood = shattered, but more about that later.

All authors are not (apparently) created equal

Going round the blogosphere in the last couple of days have been posts about the treatment of Laura Baumbach (NB: site is for over-18's only) at the RT (Romantic Times convention) in Houston.

Laura seems to be getting a lot of support from authors and readers across the blogosphere (irrespective of whether they like m/m romance or not); unfortunately, she apparently didn't get the same support from the organisers of the convention. The ones she'd paid good money to.

On a different note, more insanity sprang up at the start of the week - directed at Karen Scott. You can read DearAuthor.com's take on it here.

Have the Sith Lords taken over, or something?

On Nano: Track 15 of Enigma's MCMXC a.D. (yes, I loaded it onto iTunes without being online/ typing in the track titles - I was in a rush ok?!)

Mood: Tired because BB got me up four times in the night, but looking forward to the Bank Holiday Weekend (#1 for May!) I won't be back at work until Thursday so that's cool.

Tired

I am looking forward to the Bank Holiday weekend - 3 1/2 days and counting! I need more bookshelves so furniture will have to be moved round to make way.

I'm tired at the moment, because I'm still recovering from Sunday night (or rather, Monday morning). A lady lives across the road from me, and she has a habit of locking her man out so it's not overly unusual for me to be wakened (or kept awake) by him wailing her name, swearing, and demanding to be let in while pounding on the front door/ back door/ windows. Sometimes, I get to hear the police asking her to open the door. Sunday night/ Monday morning I was kept awake until c. 02:30hrs and the police came twice. It could have been worse - she didn't actually say anything this time, normally she screeches back like a fishwife.
Unfortunately, the yelling made B.B. want to bark so I had to keep telling him to be quiet (especially now that we have neighbours on both sides).

So, now I'm tired. Hopefully I'll have caught up by Wednesday as I have a half day and visitations to make and I want to work more on my short.

Computer Update

I have discovered why the pc is sooooooooo sloooooooow.

Apparently, it only has 256MB of RAM. My father was amazed that the damn thing actually got as far as allowing itself to be turned on, let alone ran programs. It is a miracle of hardware. (Thank you Compaq - you are obviously gods among computer manufacturers!)

So that will have to be taken care of soon. Yay, more jobs.

Temp in office: 22.7˚ (still no window control)

On Nano: Spaceman by Babylon Zoo

Mood: Tired, hungry (it's nearly lunchtime and breakfast wore off hours ago)