Busy Editor, Grumpy Cat

Trish is very busy editing and composing edit-y letters and stuff.

Please, enjoy this picture of a disgruntled kitty in lieu of a blog post.

Happy Friday!

Calico Contentment

Because horses SO cooperate for cell phone pix.

It's been a long time since I've written about Calico or horses.  How about a Cali post?

Every time I've gone to the barn, it's been a day to celebrate.  Not just because she's a fabulous horse, but for the crazy weather. Calico is a fan of weather.  Well, maybe not rain, but everything else - and every change is something for her to kick her heels up to - quite literally.

S.A. Bolich has been doing a fabulous blog on horses for writers, and I've had several writer-specific entries on horses.  While this entry isn't specifically for educational, it definitely gives some insight to equine thought.

When I'm not riding Calico, we do ground work, and I always start ground work - and often any riding session with anyone but me - with a free lunge. (The horse is in an enclosed area, but not tethered by any lead; the human makes them move with either a lunge whip or a long lead and their body posture.)  My posture is relaxed and all I do is flick my wrists to wave her away from me.  She usually dances off and shakes out a bunch of bucks and hops, breaks into a gallop, does a rollback (like a rear but in motion to change directions) to turn around, hops and does a few laps.  When I see her relax into her usual easy trot, I make her turn around - a good way to get a horse's attention.  From there, we do laps at different speeds with a lot of direction changes (because horses get bored going in the same direction; who wouldn't?).  After that, we work on turning and stretching and standing and, occasionally, tricks - like target practice.  In general, we just have a bunch of fun while getting our exercise in.

Calico is always particularly happy when we can do this in the outdoor ring.

Now, we live in New England, so weather isn't always accommodating, but so long as it's not raining or downright treacherous or at night (my biggest problem - and a winter problem), we go outside.

Last time I was there, we had fresh snow, so Calico was really "feeling her oats."  Lots of zooming around and tossing her heels, and my isn't it fun to do a sliding stop!  (You know that cartoon trope where the character stops so quickly they continue to skid forward and leave marks? Yeah, that's about it - it's actually a reining maneuver in the Western show circuit.)

Today, it was in the 40s.  All the snow on the ground was melted and we had about a quarter inch of grass-clinging mud above the frozen ground. The sliding stop was ESPECIALLY fun.  She dug all sorts of lines in the outdoor pen, turning diagonally to maximize her sliding space.  In fact, she was so pleased with her accomplishment, that during the actual exercise part, when I put out a pole for her to walk over (like an obstacle… it's a pole, flat on the ground, but horses think it's the Horse Eating Pole of Doom! and try to avoid it) she went further down the arena.  I thought she was trying to avoid the Pole of Doom! by getting out of reach, so I moved to head her off - noooo! I hardly started heading in that direction when she decided to take about four steps of a superfast canter and make a sliding stop that ended less than a quarter of an inch from the Pole of Doom!  Her tail was up, her neck was arched (a proud posture - yes, horses do like to show off!) and she looked at me 'cos, "Mom, wasn't that just awesome?!"

I assured her of her awesomeness with a positive compliment, a moment of relaxed posture and breaking eye contact for a moment, then looked back and wiggled the lead rope just a little to make her go forward. 

She looked down at the pole, then at me, cocked her head, "Oh, you still want me to do this?"

Hand and rope flick again. Eye contact.

She sighed, tossed her head, and delicately stepped over it before picking back up her trot.

Yeah, horses have personalities.  And they like having fun as much as any of us.  Haven't you ever done a running slide on a patch of ice or fresh waxed floor, then was all "Yeah, that was most excellent!" when you avoided falling flat on your bum?  (Horses fall on their bums, too, I've seen it… and some do hurt themselves while playing.)

Speaking of hurting themselves, because of the slippery mud, we didn't spend too long outside and I didn't let her get too rambunctious - it isn't terribly hard for a horse to pull a ligament or twist an ankle - just like a person can.  Even when they're just fooling around.

Hope you enjoyed the little Calico fun - and maybe, if you're a writer, you got some ideas about how your equines can show some believable personality.

Newsie, News, News, News!!

January is more than half over!  I'm doing stuff with Deadlines!

First, this is the LAST WEEK for anyone to sign up to take the fabulous New England Horror Writers Workshop at Annie's Book Stop in Worcester, MA! 

Kristi Petersen Schoonover, TJ May, and I are running an all-day workshop covering the craft of writing, editing, and business for writers - including a critique of the first 2000 words of your manuscript!  The workshop is only $30 - and we're giving a $5 discount to members of the Worcester Writers Collaborative, New England Horror Writers, Broad Universe and Worcester college students. Sign up three ways:

Paypal & email pattyatannies@gmail.com

Stop into Annie's Book Stop at 65 James Street in Worcester

Call Annie's at 508-796-5614

We're planning on having a fabulous time!

xx

In yet another event, visit Tatnuck Bookseller on 18 Lyman Street, Westborough, MA for the Worcester Writers Collaborative Author Explosion (Not Literally!) on Sunday January, 29th! 

Eighteen local authors (including me!) will be reading and signing and generally having a lot of fun.

Come join us!

xx

Arisia was fabulous!!  UnCONventional did wonderfully in its debut, and Our Fearless SPH Leader, Kate Kaynak, was happy to go home many boxes lighter than she came. 

The party was a blast - and it was so good to meet so many of our contributors!

We had CAKE!!  (That's me & Kate holding it in the pic, surrounded by our valiant team of editors and contributors!)

The Broad Universe table was also well visited with many sales, and we had a great showing on many fun panels.  For a more comprehensive review, check out these blogs by my buddies, Justine Graykin, Kendra Saunders, and David Sklar.

xx

Bad-Ass Faeries 2 also had another great review!  And they especially liked "Party Crashers" by Christy & me. J

xx

And, um… I have a pile o' papers that needs minimal attention before I go to bed…

Hope to see you at an event!

On SOPA and PIPA...

I was not savvy or awake enough to join many of my compatriots in the censorship blackout protest regarding SOPA/PIPA. What I have heard scares me, but I confess to a certain level of ignorance - to much to say anything useful here.

So, let me link you to people & resources who do know more than me so you can read what I read and make your own decision to contact your senators and congress representatives.

I did.

John Scalzi:

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/01/18/on-sopapipa-for-the-people-who-arent-blacked-out/

Nicole, who organizes the Worcester Bloggers meet-ups:

http://nicolecommawoo.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/sopapipa/

Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more

Electronic Frontier Foundation:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech

Please, research this topic and educate yourself.  What rights are you willing to give up, and what will you fight for?

January 2012: Time Travel

Welcome to our January 2012 BroadPod, and our theme, Time Travel.  Roxanne Bland, author of “The Underground”, introduces this month’s readers.

First, in an excerpt from her short story, “Misplaced Objects”, S.A. Bolich tells us about a pregnant time traveler who finds herself in a most extraordinary dilemma.

Then Danielle Ackley-McPhail offers a Victorian Steampunk piece in which a woman searching for a lost family member enlists an American inventor to create a machine that looks into the future.  But it brings back more than mere images.  Much more.

The novels of Pauline Baird Jones often involve time travel--for the characters, not Pauline herself, though she lives in hope.  She'll be reading from her EPIC Book award-winning novel, Out of Time, which takes us to bomb-ravaged London during WWII.

Then Sandra Ulbrich Almazan reads from her novella, Lyon's Legacy. It’s a case of culture shock when Joanna Lyon travels one hundred years back from the future to meet her great-grandfather in a Chicago very different from hers.

Justine Graykin is our last reader. Her novel Eloise and Avalon tells of a historian whose unauthorized use of an experimental device takes him to a distant, ancient planet in search of clues to the origins of his civilization.  Once there, he falls under the spell of the primal Earth and its inhabitants, one in particular.

Now, let our travels begin.

Jan2012BroadPod.mp3 Listen on Posterous

Posted via email from The Broad Pod posterous

January 2012: Time Travel

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Welcome to our January 2012 BroadPod, and our theme, Time Travel.  Roxanne Bland, author of “The Underground”, introduces this month’s readers.

 

First, in an excerpt from her short story, “Misplaced Objects”, S.A. Bolich tells us about a pregnant time traveler who finds herself in a most extraordinary dilemma.

 

Then Danielle Ackley-McPhail offers a Victorian Steampunk piece in which a woman searching for a lost family member enlists an American inventor to create a machine that looks into the future.  But it brings back more than mere images.  Much more.

 

The novels of Pauline Baird Jones often involve time travel--for the characters, not Pauline herself, though she lives in hope.  She'll be reading from her EPIC Book award-winning novel, OUT OF TIME, which takes us to bomb-ravaged London during WWII.

 

Then Sandra Ulbrich Almazan reads from her novella, Lyon's Legacy. It’s a case of culture shock when Joanna Lyon travels one hundred years back from the future to meet her great-grandfather in a Chicago very different from hers.

 

Justine Graykin is our last reader. Her novel Eloise and Avalon tells of a historian whose unauthorized use of an experimental device takes him to a distant, ancient planet in search of clues to the origins of his civilization.  Once there, he falls under the spell of the primal Earth and its inhabitants, one in particular.

 

Now, let our travels begin.

Jan2012BroadPod.mp3 Listen on Posterous

Fire with Friends

This past Monday, my friend Val came over and shared myannual fire ritual with me. 

It was good to share it with someone new.  She added another energy, and we added a few more parts to suit our needs for 2012… I'd organized my papers and things ahead of time, she needed to get rid of a particular artifact. 

After that, she interviewed me on faerie rules. :)

All in all, it was a lovely, magical night.

And I am tired.  So here's a cute picture of Val and Loki.

May your 2012 catch fire in a good way!