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Archive for the ‘miscellany’ Category

beyond revisionland & also an albino squirrel

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

I am out of Revisionland for the moment. Beyond Revisionland looks an awful lot like Revisionland, but Septembery.

I spent most of last week finishing & polishing & re-polishing. I’ve lost all perspective, which is usually a sign that I need to stop looking at it for awhile, so it’s gone off to Agentland.

I spent all day yesterday reading Mockingjay. I’m very conflicted about it, and I suspect I’ll be processing my thoughts on it for a good long while. I mostly enjoyed it while I was reading but I just didn’t love it the way I loved The Hunger Games & Catching Fire. I think part of it is the scope. While HG & CF had a lovely, intimate immediacy to the circumstances,  Mockingjay is much more vast, and I’m not sure how well it wears it.

Also, during Revisionland internet hiatus, I got my albino squirrel from Sleepy King.

Because, well, I needed an albino squirrel.

Squirrel photo taken with my new camera lens that just came in the mail today. I’ve been meaning to take more photos & I always get good Salem shots in the autumn, so I figured I’d invest in a new lens. It’s a Canon 50mm f/1.8 II and no, I totally don’t know what it means other than it does that fuzzy background thing I love, and from a few minutes of playing around with it, it takes gorgeous photos of kittens.

This may be the first time I’ve ever caught the Tessa yell on camera.

Still getting used to it, but so far I kind of love it. A few more shots of Tess are over on my oft-neglected Flickr photostream.

In other news, summer decided to have a last hurrah so it is far too hot, and I kind of don’t know what to do with myself now that I’m out of Revisionland. Maybe I’ll take more photos of kittens. Or peek at one of those WIPs that I’ve been neglecting. Or knit. Or something.

mini-hiatus

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

The end of Revisionland is in sight. There’s something bright up ahead that looks like September, maybe. I can’t tell.

Taking a mini internet hiatus for the week in an attempt to finish this thing. Still checking e-mail. Will be back on Friday.

We’re working hard around here.

Especially Tessa.

Hope y’all have lovely weeks!

keys

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

We have this long blank wall in the hallway.

From time to time I thought of putting decals on it or something, but it seemed like too much effort for a space we only ever spend seconds at a time passing through.

Then we found this set of skeleton keys, and it seemed a good place for them.

They make me inexplicably happy when I walk down the hallway now. But I have a thing for keys.

In other news, I’ve finally reached the end of my first pass revision-wise. I still have a long list of beta notes and adjustments to make, with more to come, but the major changes are done so the rest should ideally be minor things and polishing.

The full draft will be finished by the end of the month. Summer in the Revisionland Hotel has been interesting, to say the least.

in lieu of content

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

I am so deep in Revisionland it’s absurd. I am attempting to finish this draft by the end of the month, which is reasonable, but means the rest of the month is going to be very busy.

Like, I might not read Mockingjay until a week after it comes out busy. I know.

So in lieu of actual blog content this week, here is a photograph of a pomegranate.

5 things for august 5th

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

  1. Nathan Bransford’s post on  “Lost” and the High Narrative Price of WTF. Nails a lot of my lingering LOST issues.
  2. My new Droid Incredible is my friend. My fancypants friend who confuses me with all its skillz & I’m still learning to type on properly, but I love love love having a phone that does more than make phone calls. Not that I can do much more than make phone calls and tweet on it right now.
  3. I am officially sick of summer and it can be glorious, glorious autumn any time now. Seriously. This humidity can die. The kitten flop-o-meter was off the charts today.
  4. I am, as you probably guessed, still deep in Revisionland. Like, Inception-style multi-level deep. It’s going really, really well, but there’s still a good long ways to go.
  5. I love when, in the midst of researching, I find historical things that walked right out of my imagination, like this House of Worth evening gown, circa 1898-1900.

miscellany for the 29th day of july

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Revisionland has destroyed my ability to blog, have you noticed?

Probably because it means I’m typing most of the day, so then when I go to blog my brain thinks “More typing? Can’t we go do yoga or something?” so then I go and drink iced green tea while I think about maybe doing yoga.

So, miscellaneous things that may or may not be of interest to you, dear reader.

  • My very first phone that does more than making phone calls is scheduled to arrive tomorrow. I cannot tell you how happy this makes me. I probably will tell you, actually, in some sort of dedicated phone lust post next week.
  • Zebradonkey. I love his stripey legs.
  • My cats have a blog. Don’t tell them I told you.
  • Revising is actually going really well. It’s slow, but since it’s more expanding & adding things than just polishing, I think that’s to be expected. Almost at the halfway mark, I think.
  • This bunny is brilliant and I wants it but I do not have $500 for awesome bunny sculpture, which is tragique.

Yeah, that’s all I’ve got. I’m in nonstop work mode. I saw Inception but I’m incapable of talking about it articulately without babbling and I’m very opinionated about the ending. I have flopsy kittens, which is typical for this time of year. I want it to be autumn, cinnamon-spiced and crisp.

on comments

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

I’ve seen a bit of discussion lately about moderating blog comments.

I don’t want to do it, but I have my comments set to moderated for one very simple reason.

I get a lot of spam comments.

I mean, a lot.

As in, I just deleted 50 before I started this post. I feel like I can better manage them if I can let them build up in the moderation queue, rather than worrying that they’re all over the blog already.

Also, this means I might very occasionally miss a real comment in all the junk, my apologies for that.

And it’s getting harder to quickly write things off as junk with a quick glance, too. I don’t know what the comment spammers are trying to accomplish but in between the random links I get things like this:

Who was the most important person you spent time with today? (from “direct buy membership cost”)

That is very sublime stuff. Never new that beliefs could be this varied. Thanks for all the enthusiasm to extend such helpful information at this site. (from “louis vuitton handbags”)

Easily, the post is genuinely the greatest on this deserving topic. I agree with your conclusions and will thirstily look forward to your approaching updates. Saying thanks will not just be enough, for that tremendous clarity in your writing. I will instantly grab your rss feed to stay privy of any updates. Gratifying work and a lot success in your business enterprize! (from “childrens table and chairs”)

Keep at it and your blog will be perfect in the future too!  (from “watch Supernatural”)

Also, The Parrot God wants me to buy accutane. Yeah, I don’t even know.

So that’s why my comments are moderated for now. Maybe if it calms down I’ll start leaving them unmoderated again. Maybe.

birthday

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

Today I am 32 years old.

Which means this blog is 2 years old.

Also, there are cupcakes.

new office

Monday, July 5th, 2010

Months ago, the boy asked me what I wanted for my birthday.

I said I wanted a new desk chair, because I’m boring. Also, because I spend a large amount of time sitting in it, and the one I had lacked any real back support.

Somehow that turned into maybe also getting a new desk. So we had a planned before-birthday excursion to IKEA to spin around in chairs and see if any of their desks would fit the studio.

And the day before said excursion, my iMac decided to be cranky to the point of being worrisome, especially considering it’s my primary writing computer and no longer covered by AppleCare.

So, even though my birthday is not until Thursday, I have a brand new home office.

Old version:

Apologies for the glare. This was, I believe, my dad’s desk from high school, painted over several times.

New version:

We actually found an IKEA desk that fit perfectly, including a shelf that runs along the back of the drawers that collects all the cords and protects them from cord-gnawing kittens. My new chair is fabulous, and I cannot even tell you how shiny & wonderful the new iMac is, it’s amazing what only a few years difference in technology makes. I keep scrolling on any screen that will scroll just because the mouse has touch-screen-esque scrolling.

So happy happy early birthday to me, especially since I’m going to be glued to this spot for the foreseeable future.

We moved the old desk out into the hall for now. It has been claimed already.

stuff no one told me

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

Invariably, whenever I go on internet hiatus I find something upon my return that reminds me why, though I may take occasional breaks, I do truly love the web.

This time around it was this blog: Stuff No One Told Me

Marvelous illustrated life lessons by Alex Noriega, and the blog is fairly new so it’s easy to catch up on all of them.