A Resolution to… Party & Promote!

Ok, so, I didn't finish writing up all my goals in a coherent post. However, I've got a convention this weekend!

I love Arisia, and I love being part of this convention, so if aren't already registered, consider doing so.  It's a fabulous time!

And, for if/when you are there, here's how you can stalk me!

First, check the Broad Universe table in the Dealer's Room.  Find out about our awesome organization, get nifty Broad merch, hang with Broads, become a Broad… and patronize Broads who'll have their books around! (Because, you know, you totally need more books!  Aside from Sunday, where I'll barely manage to be there for opening and then be panel-hopping and putting on a show for the rest of the day (just look at my schedule below!), there's a good chance you'll find me at the table - or someone there can find me for you. 

Besides that, if I can manage to get a ride, I plan on being at the Memorial Service for Badger on Friday.  Badger was a great supporter of the New England area Broads, and an all round wonderful person.  Her passing is a great loss to the SFF community.

As for the Official Schedule (verbage borrowed from Arisia site):

Friday

5:30, Adams

Gender Limitations in SF/F

Often, strong female characters are portrayed in such a way that seem to be a rejection not just of traditional gender roles but of all things feminine. Similarly, male characters that take on what are regarded as traditional female roles are viewed as emasculated figures incapable of pro-active action. Where are the strong warrior women that can also be compassionate or the house-husbands that have a role beyond being the punchline of a joke?

I'm Moderating!  With Super-Cool Friends!

Saturday

11:30, Quincy

Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading

Broad Universe is an international organization of women and men dedicated to celebrating and promoting the work of women writers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Come hear samples from the works of several members of the Broad Universe organization.

There's a bunch of us, I'm emcee-ing. :)  There will be chocolate.  Come!

1:00 PM, Paine

How to Design a Fun Role Playing Adventure

You need to come up with a roleplaying adventure for your friends, quickly! But nothing's coming to mind. What to do? Our panel of experience gamemasters will share tips and tricks to come up with fun, challenging, and interesting adventures for your friends that will keep them coming back for more.

… It appears I'm the chick-in-residence at this panel. Cue evil laughter!!!

5:30, Galleria

Autograph?!

I'm at an autograph session with James MacDonald and Steve Sawicki!  Um… please come so I don't feel like a loser with no one at my signing?  I <3 you!

Sunday: Day of Insanity

11:30 AM, Quincy

UnCONventional Reading

UnCONventional is an [AWESOME!] anthology of sci-fi and fantasy stories set in cons that are a cover-up for something paranormal ['cos, that's the truth, y'know!]. Come hear [FANTABULOUS] samples from it by several of the contributing authors. [Brackets mine.]

Just be there!  I bribe you with chocolate and coffee!!!

2:30, Harbor Ballroom III

Tea With Special Guests

Squee! I'm a "Special Guest!"  But there's, you know, ton of other awesome people, including all the guests of honor (the Foglios! Esther Friesner!)  and a few other fabulous friends of mine.  It's a special thingamajig, so get the ticket and enjoy a lovely tea! 

4:00, Paine

Writing as a Business

You've got your manuscripts and cover letters ready, and you're sending out submissions. How do you market yourself? Should you hire an agent, and how do you work with them? What are the rights that can be attached to a short story or novel for the author? When do rights revert back to the author? Is self-publishing a viable option, and what are the pros and cons of doing it? Where do you go for help and advice?

I'm Moderating, again - with another group of Super-Cool Friends!

5:30, Douglas

Food Communicating Culture in Literature

How do writers communicate things about their cultures and characters via the food they use? What can you discern about cultures based on if they get their food in pill form or if they are vegetarian/vegan, omnivores, or carnivores? How does the anatomy and physiology of your aliens or magical creatures dictate their food requirements? What about the terrain? Does the diversity of food culture--and what it communicates--on Earth get shown in literature?

I'm a-moderating again, with new people who have excellent reasons to be on this panel.  You gotta come check it out!

8PM, TBA

PARTY! PARTY! PARTY!!! 

Spencer Hill Press and Broad Universe co-host a kick-arse party celebrating the release of UnCONventional - and the all-round awesomeness of our writers.  There will be lots of lovely food and CAKE! and caffeinated beverages and who knows what else.  Make sure we're on your party list!

… I may get some sleep in there, and then…

Monday

… I have Monday off!  I can sleep!  And go to panels!  And pack up the table! :) 

Hehehehe!

Hopefully I've excited you about going to Arisia.  I look forward to seeing you there!!

Happy New Year 2012 – Part 1

Yes, it's that wonderful time of year again!  Time to evaluate my 2011 goals and move forward with my 2012 plans.

I remember reading in one of the many articles I perused over 2011 that publicly setting goals actually hinders one's ability to get them done.  The psychology behind that is that the act of setting goals makes one feel "accomplished," and therefore slows or stops progress; we need a certain amount of stress to push us to go beyond just setting goals.

I'm ambivalent about that because every year that I've done this exercise, I've improved my business life as a writer.  On the other hand, I didn't meet a lot of the goals I set last January.

On the other, other hand (because I write spec fic and I can have more than two hands, damnit), a whole lot of opportunities and major changes redirected me…

See, I had this nice line of goals and steps set up, and then wooooo, that path took a 45 degree angle or something--starting not long after I even made said goals!—and while some of those steps and goals still fit on that line, a lot did not.

The Changes

Big Change 1: Spencer Hill Press

It started with being invited to co-edit this wonderful anthology for which I've been carrying around bookmarks and the first contributor copy around like my firstborn child.  Which it kinda is, being the first book with my name on the cover.  That, and it's made of teh awesomesauce of awesome.  (Go pre-order it now!)  It evolved into perusing the slush pile and adopting a manuscript or two to love and edit… which I need to ask Kate about the protocol for pre-publication gushing.

Big Change 2: Presidency!

Of Broad Universe.  Because, y'know, just running events and stuff wasn't enough.  I WANT THE WORLD!  FOR WOMEN!  WHO WRITE ALL SORTS OF WONDERFUL SPECULATIVE FICTION!  Ahem.  Yes.  I'm always very dignified about my responsibilities.  You totes should join our quest for world domination!

Big Change 3:  Calico Silver!

Ok, I claimed this last year, too, but I'VE NOW HAD A HORSE FOR OVER A FULL YEAR AND WE DID AWESOME STUFF TOGETHER!

Big Change 4: Concrete, Solidity on H-of-A's Deployment

Which I can only talk about a little for various reasons.  But it's big for both of us.

The Accomplishments

In planning for these posts, because they are always more than posts for me, I read back over last year's posts.  (Mind you, I really am evaluating myself and planning as I write this.  I'm a writer; I think best in writing.)  I admitted last year that I wasn't satisfied how I was tracking certain progress.  As I've learned more, a lot of what I was tracking is really useless info.

Here is just some of the highlights:

Starting with previously mentioned…

• Maintained horse adoption happiness.
• Edited an anthology. (That you totally want to buy, right?)
• Took on my first novel manuscript at Spencer Hill Press
• Became Prez of Broad Universe

What all else I did…

• Edited and updated another StraighterLine course
• Finished complete second draft of Kelpie and sent to Beta readers
• Published "Kali's Promise" in Epitaphs, the New England Horror Writers anthology
• Published "To Me You are Holy" in the Eye on Life: Poetry Locksmith
• Had "Fixed" accepted into Corrupts Absolutely? (due out March 2012)
• Had "The Unicorn & the Old Woman" accepted into Sauced anthology (due out 2012)
• Submitted 22 fiction/poetry pieces to various markets, agents, publishers (3 fewer than last year, but higher acceptance rate!)
• Guest of Awesome at Pi-Con
• Presented panels at Arisia, Conbust, Wiscon, Pi-Con, Dragon*Con, and Anthocon

And my usuals…

• Maintained position as food writer for Worcester Magazine
• Wrote and published about two dozen other pieces of non-fiction
• Edited more stuff for StraighterLine and Smarthinking
• Regularly tutored

There ya' have it. A highlighted list of 2011. Feel free to compare it to my goal-setting post and weigh it yourself, but really, I'm proud of it, and that's what matters.  Next post will be the goal setting, itself.

Too busy to blog…

Yes!  It's a New Year!

Yes!  I'm doing a New Year's Plan set of posts.

Just not today.

Why?

Because Scott's getting on a plane to the other side of the globe in less than 9 hours.

And that's what he and our living room look like right now.

Though - one New Year's Resolution will be my return to 3 blogs a week, so there will be one Wednesday sometime.  Where I'll share my New Year's Planning.

Post Christmas Happy Collapse

I'd like to say I've had a chance to start looking over my plans for 2012, but that'd be a nasty lie, and it's rude to write lies outside of fiction. (And occasionally within fiction when not executed properly.)  Quite honestly, though, I don't care.  I'm quite happy about the events that unfolded this week.

It's been a lovely whirlwind of a week, though.  Two Yule parties, one of which I had the honor of guarding the Solstice flame all night while baking cookies with a new friend (mother of another friend).  After that, my overtired quota was hardly filled—it was like being in college again!  Seeing the sunrise by choice is much more magical than when you are not expecting to see it (my usual state of sunrise viewing: Oh crap! I'm still up?!).

Christmas Eve has changed; we spent it with good friends as Scott's aunt has moved to Maine.  It was a wonderful dinner where we made excellent strides in corrupting our friend's 17-year-old daughter.  We came home, I finished a few more batches of cookies and baking while Scott finally put the decorations up for the family coming over in the morning… er, later morning, as it really wasn't until about midnight that we started hard-core last-last minute prep.

Now, as Scott will be traveling, we had gotten – or so I thought – all our own presents to each other done early.  He wanted & needed a kindle and a laptop that could be used for both gaming and his job-related stuff.  I had wanted an Outback coat that I could steampunk up, but found another I liked, with another pair of riding jeans and a pair of riding boots that were also fashionable all for the price of originally desired coat.  Ta-dah! Presents accomplished.

So, while I had nothing to sneak into the pile of family presents, I felt bad leaving him to finish his part of the wrapping and cleaning when I finished mine around 3AM-ish, so I started putting together and wrapping the stuff for my side of the family. As it was now into Christmas as opposed to Christmas Eve, I was oblivious that his grouching for me to "just go to bed" was anything more than him likely being overtired, too.

Eventually, I did go to bed before him.  When I was getting my coat to pick up my Mom-In-Law, I learned of his sneaky machinations.

"Dear, before you go, can you grab me the box out of the living room?" he asks as he was getting ready to start the griddle for our traditional Christmas Breakfast.

Grumble, grumble… I zip up my fabulous new boot and tromp over to the living room.  I'm late picking up Joyce.  I bee-line for the pile of empty Amazon boxes that we've collected over the past few months.  "Which one?!"

"The big one.  In the middle of the table?"  I hear him coming in my direction.

"Huh… Oh!"

There in the middle of the collection of family presents is a Kuerig coffee machine with green streamers on top!

He laughs.  Because, y'know, I walked right by the big, unwrapped box and didn't notice it. 

"Thank you!!!"  I'm getting teary.  I totally don't have any surprise for him this year.  I wasn't planning for it at all!  I'd been thinking of getting one of those for a while, especially for when I'll be the only one drinking coffee for some time.  I'd complimented friends on it, but I don't remember mentioning it more than once, maybe twice.  He really does listen to me!

But, wait!  There's more!

He slips one more wrapped box out from under the pile and hands it to me.  Two sniffles from desperately needing a tissue, I unwrap the box and… it's my own Kindle!

About a week ago, when I started going through the slush pile and editing for Spencer Hill Press, I had told him, something to the effect of, "Damn, I should have just had you get me a Kindle, too, when they were on sale.  I didn't think I'd use it then… but now I see how I could really use it."  It was a lament, though… I hadn't expected anything.

And now it was in my hands!

Yep, needed the tissue… and kept going through them all the way to his mom's apartment.  (Shush – I was also PMSing, so totally logical reason for me to be all weepy!)

If that wasn't enough to garner another Husband-of-Awesome award… after hosting an excellent Christmas Breakfast, after spending a good day with my family at my mom's house, he stayed at my mom's house until 12:30AM fixing her computer that we calculated as being 8 years old. 

Yep. :)  Husband-of-Awesome. 

I'll get work done later.  Now, I just want to appreciate him!

Christmas Week!

I baked nearly all my cookies last week… but I didn't finish or frost the ones that need to be frosted.

I still need to finish up my year end reviews for tutoring, too…

Oh, and I need to get back to the Spencer Hill Press Slush pile…

Needless to say, I'm behind on my plans from this post.  le sigh.

Also, outside of the Blizzard Hallowe'en, we haven't had any snow.  Not that I'm complaining (Dear Mother Earth, I am TOTALLY COOL with no snow!), but that means no cute winter snow pix of Calico.  I may be able to get a Santa hat picture of her tomorrow, but we'll see how behind I'm running to my lesson and how much light I've got.

So, you have some cute pix if the indoor animals. 

Now, I have to get back to that whole catch-up on work.

Weight is a Class Issue

As I embark on yet another attempt to lose weight - I gained this year, a total step backwards in that part of my 2011 Goals - I'm reminded that, really, trying to lose weight requires a certain amount of financial privilege.

With our current "War on Obesity" TM in this country (because we get things accomplished by declaring war on them. Just ask the DEA!) growing in power and ferocity, such as taking obese kids from parents, I'm reminded of John Scalzi's "Being Poor" and "Point of Privilege" posts.  In the former, he discusses food options, such as buying the Ramen noodles that are 12 for $1 as opposed to 10 for $1; in the latter, he says,

"The vector of privilege these days is not physical items, but how well one is cared for, or can care for one’s self and family: Whether one has adequate health care, whether one has access to healthy food, whether one’s housing and transportation costs are a not-onerous percentage of the household income, whether one has day care for children, whether one is free of high-interest consumer debt, and whether one can afford to save any money for the future."

Focusing just on those two first things in his list, Scott has what per most health care debates would define as a "luxury plan."  In this luxury plan, this year, I was able to deduct up to $150 in exercise program costs.  Now, my sister-in-law and I scoured the area for places.  For the cheap ones, that would cover sign-up and a month.  Maybe.  We picked the Y, which was the cheapest.  It covered sign-up (which I had a coupon for), and two months.  For the rest, I have to dish out $40 per month.  Someone who has to play the "which bill can I skip this month so I can feed my family" certainly can't cover that.  We won't even discuss the exercise plans where the $150 wouldn't even cover a single month.

Now, this is just exercise; it doesn't go into eating and all that.  Many of the health clubs have that for an added amount.  My hospital also offers a plan.  UMass happens to be one of the best hospitals in the nation for weight loss.  Is their plan covered?  Nope, absolutely not.  That's another few hundred out of my pocket!

Mind you, this is after many other attempts on my own, through programs, and whatever else I've tried that I can't even begin to list.

Exercise should be easy, right?  Um. No.  More and more cities are losing sidewalks; it's not safe for anyone to walk anywhere.  (We won't even get into Stranger Danger and all that fear.)  Bikes are targets.  The aggressions between cyclists and cars continue to grow in my area.  Motor vehicles won't yield to bikes; bikes have to basically break the law to get where they're going.  Most people don’t have jobs they can walk to.  Many people continue to have to take working lunches, so no walks after lunch.  After spending 8-12 hours at your work, honestly, do you want to stay any longer just to use exercise equipment?  No.  You want to get home and be exhausted with your family.  With extended hours, people get less sleep, so they are less motivated to exercise.  It's a fight just to get enough sleep in a night.  And it's not like people are really able to negotiate with their jobs right now; shoot - we're happy we have a job!  And we're constantly reminded of this.

For the sake of brevity, I will only make the passing point that stress, anxiety, and fear cause the body to retain weight.  And we live in a culture still ruled by fear: fear of losing work, fear of what the media tells us to be afraid of…

Add to that the cost of food.  Just take a walk around your local supermarket.  What's more affordable?  The store brand pasta made with refined flour or whole grains?  85% ground beef or lean turkey or whole cuts of meat?  Canned vegetables or fresh produce? Store brand fruit juice with high fructose corn syrup or the organic, low sugar juice?  Which children's cereals are most affordable?  All the unhealthy stuff.  When it's food or no food, you buy what you can afford so your family doesn't go hungry. Period.   Moving even further down the income chain, what kinds of foods are available through welfare, food banks, and WIC?  Is it the whole grain, organic, fresh-therefore-perishable stuff?  No.  So how can anyone dare say it's the parents' fault if their child can't eat healthy?

It's not like the schools are helping.  After all, a serving of pizza can cover the vegetable portion due to the 1/8 cup of tomato paste per slice, despite being mostly made up of a thick crust of refined flour and covered with cheap cheese.  Because, also, evidently, we're also still following the Reagan logic of tomatoes being a vegetable.  There are plenty of other fascinating figures on how schools are failing students with sub-standard lunches for anyone who cares to look them up.  Unless you can afford to pack your kid an awesome lunch that they'll want to eat and is also healthy for them, you're stuck with the school lunch. 

For poor students, school lunch may be the closest thing to a well-balanced meal they get; Mom or Dad had to buy the 12 Ramen for $1 so that they could use some of the grocery money to pay rent or electricity or fix the car so they could go to work--because public transportation won't get them there on time, if at all.

So, starting in childhood, people who can't afford the best food have their bodies conditioned to subsist on crap.  To hold onto fat because one never knows when the next meal will be, or if groceries will run short because electricity will be shut off otherwise.  Or, even to hold onto fat because the poor food causes a stress/anxiety reaction in the body.  Trained to finish your plate and not waist a crumb, the habit and guilt follow an individual into adulthood, where they finish off the ridiculously portioned meals from restaurants.

Speaking of restaurants, here's a little more number crunching for anyone who wants to lay guilt on poor people for eating fast food.  If one takes the time to calculate, and depends on schools to provide breakfast and lunch for the kids, a family of four can eat for $10 or less a night from fast food.  Carefully mixed with cheap pasta, hamburger, ramen, mac & cheese, and canned vegetables, that can actually bring down the grocery bill and steal just a little more family time before Mom or Dad or anyone else has to run off to their second job.

Am I saying this is good?  No.  I'm saying our culture doesn’t support a healthy lifestyle, and the poorer you are, the less ability you have to live a healthy lifestyle--even just eat healthy food!

If this country does decide to make this another official "War on…", I'm afraid it will - like most every other war declared - just end up being another war upon the heads of the poor.  Until then, those of us who are overweight actually have a chance of dropping weight.

Now, if only we could be inspired to do so as opposed to shamed… but that's an another post for a later time.

December 2011: Faith and Fear

12-2011BroadPod.mp3 Listen on Posterous

In our December 2011 podcast, we have the snowy chill of Fear and the blanketing warmth of Faith.  Justine Graykin introduces our readers:

Jennifer Pelland shares a sample from her new novel, “Machine”, about the loss of faith in love.  In which body does the true heart of Celia lie? 

 In Tracy S. Morris’s “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” four now-grown girls from four different children's stories wrestle with the fear that they may never return to fairyland and may instead be stuck in the mundane world. Some lose faith, while others keep hoping.  

Kelly A. Harmon, takes us “On the Path” with Tan, an unusual farmer, who embarks on a strange adventure when his unconventionally powered plow breaks down. 

Bonnie Lee introduces us to the eerie world of replicates in an excerpt from the novel adaptation of her screenplay, “Crazy Eyes”.

Kim Vandervort reads from “Northern Queen”, the tale of a young woman who must choose between faith in a mysterious old crone and her fear of the unknown. 

Light a candle against the December darkness, and listen to these Yule-tide samples of the story-telling art.

 

Posted via email from The Broad Pod posterous