Newsie, Newsie, News, News, News

Grab your vice-drink of choice and your comfy chair: Lotsa stuff going on!

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(Some of you may remember K.S. Augustin as one of the first sponsors for the Bay State Equine Rescue Blogathon.  More thanks for that!  Now, go visit her site and buy some fab books!)

So… I'm supposed to pass the award on and tell you 7 things about me that you might not already know (or something like that).

7.  This September 30th, I'll be celebrating my 10th Wedding Anniversary.  (God, I'm getting old!)

6.  Although I love horses, I maybe only go riding 2-4 times a year.

5.  Like Kaz, I also hate reality shows.

4.  I still think David Tennant is the BEST DOCTOR EVAR!

3.  I used to make jewelry and all presents when I was a teen.  The jewelry bug never left me (see below.)

2.  I run a podcast for Broad Universe called the Broad Pod.  (Ok, you may have known this already, but PROMO!!)

1.  I think bladed weapons (and kitchen untensils) are pretty.

And I'll go with 7 people to send this to:  Aimee Weinstein, Luc Joseph, Inanna Arthen, Suzanne Reynolds-Alpert, Teresa Jusino, Brenna Lyons, and Kelly Harmon.   Enjoy!

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I took my time posting this, but I want to show off, finally:

I made pretty necklaces!

This one is lapis, shell, and round beads with the main pendant an old Avon ® one I found when I went through my extensive jewelry collection not too long ago.

This one is adventurine, rose quartz, and silver with a cameo locket that I also found in my old jewelry collection. And let me tell you, with that filigree, it was a total bitch to photograph clearly! This is 1/3 of the reason I don't post a ton of photos on my blog. (1/3 is that I usually am having to much fun to remember to take photos, and the other 1/3 is because the cable thingy to download from the camera has gone missing.)

In any case, adore the pretty shiny!

Thanks, Renée for teaching me how to bead!

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Scott dragged my lazy arse outside yesterday to work on the garden despite the icky heat and my pitiful inhaler puffs and adamant "don't wanna!!!" complaints. It was for the best. I harvested some herbs and made a lovely alter setting to dry some of them... while Scott turned the rest of the surplus mint into mojitos. (Incidentally, you local people, would you like some mint and/or lemon balm? Seriously!)

Even cooler, though, the red-tailed hawk that has lived on our property since Scott was a kid (or perhaps her descendents - how long to red-tailed hawks live?) was taking her older-than-fledglings out to practice hunting in the woods where we throw all of the organic yard waste. There's an opening that looks down a cliff there; it's really beautiful - but you'll have to imagine. I didn't have the camera. In any case, Herself is a big freaking hawk, but her kids were all a bit smaller than crows - but it was sooooo cool to watch them jumping around and screeching to each other. (Besides, even if I DID have the camera, they were totally all "cloaking engaged." I'm lucky I saw them at all, and it was quite the switcheroo that I saw them before H-of-A, aka Eagle Eyes.)

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At Readercon, I TOTALLY SOLD OUT of my Bad-Ass Faeries 3: In All Their Glory copies! Yaay! I'll get more in when I can… but you could go over to Amazon and buy them, too. :)

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I was recently interviewed by Valerie Hadden, Pagan columnist for the Boston Examiner.com.  We ended up going all silly about animals, so enjoy!  She also quoted me in her recent "Faerie Quotes" article, too.  Yay press - Thank you, Val. :) 

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Believe it or not: I've got blog posts done ahead for this week!!

- gasp! -

I'll wait a second for you to still your shocked heart. Good? 'Kay then.

Wednesday, I'm talking about "hooks" and Friday you will get to see my rant (hopefully tempered some by then with further research) on the Catholic Church, pedophiles, and women priests that I didn't post last Friday in lieu of continued begging for sponsors for my Bay State Equine Rescue Blogathon.

That said, I also gave a Yay to Sword & Saga's 100k challenge.  Yeah - not so great there.  Hopefully, I can make up the difference this week - and actually take some time to total up my measly fiction and non-fic word counts for the past week. 

That said, a good 4 hours of Friday was comic book work, which includes sketching… ideas on how to calculate thumbnails/rough sketches for word count?  If a picture is 1000 words, could each page layout be 500 words?  If so… my word count isn't quite the pittance I'm estimating.  Thoughts?

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I'm on page 3, and it's 3AM, and I have to wake up in enough time to make some calls for an article tomorrow… because, well, I still do those article things for pay. I've had more by-lines as myself (rather than my alternate personality) in Worcester Magazine, though, so feel free to check out my food finds there, too!

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So, what's knew with y'all?

Bad-Ass Faeries 3: In All Their Glory

Writing Challenge!

Fellow Broad, Hunter Liguore, posed a 100k challenge our discussion list and the Sword & Saga blog based on Stephen King's On Writing.

I wanted to jump on this right away, but hesitated.

For this month, I'd been running away to my favorite deli or coffee shop or art gallery just to steal a little time to write, and I've got, I think, almost 30 pages on Heather's story (the character, not the friend by that name), so about 7500 words, give or take. I've been missing meeting with my artist friend for the comic book, which is on about 20-some-odd scripted pages (which, of course, is more written pages than pages scripted). Fortunately, Stef (artist friend) now has a new studio! On top of that, there's still the Apocalyptic YA I'm working on with Christy.

So, I'm behind on all that, not counting short stories and submissions.

I also (obviously) have fallen behind on non-fiction - as I'm just updating my blog again after a whole week.

There was a big rush in training and work in my tutoring position, and recently Readercon to plan for, but it's time I reconnoiter and … get back on that horse of productivity again!

I'm taking the challenge!

Just - as I normally do - in my own way. My 100k will be split between fiction & non-fiction.

So, 5k writing fiction each week + 5k writing non-fiction.

And, except for my really long essay-esque emails regarding teaching/tutoring/feminism/news etc. to my discussion groups, email DOES NOT COUNT. Blogging totally counts, as does any actual non-fic assignments. I'll do a breakdown each week, too, so watch for it on Twitter and possibly here.

I have a theory, in any case, that my non-fic writing is already at + 5k. However, if it's not, it's damn good excuse to do some ahead-of-time blogging!

Who's with me?

*The pic is from our tour of Fort Sumter while we were in South Carolina. Scott got a nice shot of me looking hopeful as I head through a new doorway. I like the metaphor for this challenge.