***
Spending the weekend in Rye, NY at the Hilton for Lunacon. Very productive experience. I'm feeling "in my element" surrounded by authors, agents, publishers and lots of people who like to dress up in costume! Went to a Steampunk ball last night. Dragged a purple satin Victorian dress from my closet (yes, I own these things as a matter of course. Hey! You never know when you're going to be in a movie based on a book by Jane Austen!) I dressed it up with some metal and a bike chain bracelet and I thought I pulled it off well enough for last minute notice (I found out about it yesterday afternoon.)
Today I went to panels, most of which were both fun and productive. (One was fun but NOT at all productive!) Met Lucienne Diver from the Knightsbridge Agency, Michael Kabongo from Onyx Hawke, went to a panel on publishing contracts with Jane Jewell from SFFWA and Michele Lang.
Also met Mercedes Lackey, S. C. Butler, Pauline Alama (my roomie and the excellent author of Eye of Night), Lawrence Schoen of Paper Golem Press, Dave Freer, Mary Robinette Kowal, Misty Pendragon, Michele Land, Paul Levison, Jeff Lyman, Ben Yalow, Eddie Schneider from Jabberwocky, Nathan Lilly (who started Thaumatrope), Mary Aileen Buss of AASL, Aaron Rosenberg, Josepha Sherman of Sherman Editorial Services , Alma Alexander, Neil Clarke, Robert Katz, James Chambers, Laura Anne Gilman, Sean Fodera, Lawrence M. Schoen, Michael Walsh, and more. (I also saw a painting demonstration by Donato Giancola that made me want to burn every canvas in my house and donate my paintbrushes to the Salvation Army.)
My eyes are bloodshot from lack of sleep. I've been running around all day to panels and talking, eating, and sleeping writing.
I feel at home.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Privacy!!!
So...duh...I just realized my blog could be searched by...well, almost anyone.
I decided NOT to change that feature, that I wanted to share my erudition with the world (I'm just so magnanimous!).
Actually, I realized I haven't said anything (too) compromising yet and that if I keep personal bad habits out of the conversation, I'm probably safe.
I recall Dave Barry once saying that the writing process involved a lot of picking on your feet. YUK! Did I ever forget that? No. Did I ever DO that? (See sentence #3).
I decided NOT to change that feature, that I wanted to share my erudition with the world (I'm just so magnanimous!).
Actually, I realized I haven't said anything (too) compromising yet and that if I keep personal bad habits out of the conversation, I'm probably safe.
I recall Dave Barry once saying that the writing process involved a lot of picking on your feet. YUK! Did I ever forget that? No. Did I ever DO that? (See sentence #3).
Monday, February 23, 2009
Writing School of Life
Why am I thinking of my next story only one day after I finished a rather difficult project? I was keeping up a crazy pace, writing until 2 a.m., getting up to go to work at 5, and you know the rest of it with family/work/my fifth teaching certificate/health matters and more... I should at least TRY to relax!
*
Writing means so much to me. It feels like such a good fit for who I am. Contrary to the outgoing nutcase that I appeared to be to certain myopic observers in the past, I don't crave a live audience. Even when I was in the entertainment industry I always preferred the jobs that were done behind the scenes...voiceovers and commercials...to getting up in front of hundreds singing or acting live. Give me a camera any day. My short cable TV show stint was probably my favorite acting gig. I got to be funny in front of a camera. Stand up? Don't think I haven't thought of it but I was never able to get up the nerve.
*
But writing works for me. I am disciplined enough to get up every day to work on my own...I LOVE it! I pass up summer days to sit at the pc when I'm into a story. Sometimes I drag my pc to the deck just so I won't waste the fresh air and sunshine locked in the den. Then I am the most content of all because I feel that I have everything I love...my writing, my garden, my waterfall. Even making people laugh.
*
All my life, all the jobs - from cabdriver to dishwasher to waitress serving chili to Johnny Cash in Nashville; the broken dreams - the time that Richard Thomas called me in for the movie part and my boss didn't tell me until closing time; the meat grinder of love, betrayal, and the years of loneliness; the insanity of travel - picking up a Mayan family in a golf cart on a dirt road in Belize, beaches in France, canoe trips down the Corobici with crocodiles, swimming with sharks in Mexico....all of this was, to me, the "school" I attended to become a writer.
*
Now I'm ready to graduate.
*
Writing means so much to me. It feels like such a good fit for who I am. Contrary to the outgoing nutcase that I appeared to be to certain myopic observers in the past, I don't crave a live audience. Even when I was in the entertainment industry I always preferred the jobs that were done behind the scenes...voiceovers and commercials...to getting up in front of hundreds singing or acting live. Give me a camera any day. My short cable TV show stint was probably my favorite acting gig. I got to be funny in front of a camera. Stand up? Don't think I haven't thought of it but I was never able to get up the nerve.
*
But writing works for me. I am disciplined enough to get up every day to work on my own...I LOVE it! I pass up summer days to sit at the pc when I'm into a story. Sometimes I drag my pc to the deck just so I won't waste the fresh air and sunshine locked in the den. Then I am the most content of all because I feel that I have everything I love...my writing, my garden, my waterfall. Even making people laugh.
*
All my life, all the jobs - from cabdriver to dishwasher to waitress serving chili to Johnny Cash in Nashville; the broken dreams - the time that Richard Thomas called me in for the movie part and my boss didn't tell me until closing time; the meat grinder of love, betrayal, and the years of loneliness; the insanity of travel - picking up a Mayan family in a golf cart on a dirt road in Belize, beaches in France, canoe trips down the Corobici with crocodiles, swimming with sharks in Mexico....all of this was, to me, the "school" I attended to become a writer.
*
Now I'm ready to graduate.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)