Apple bread? Check.
Tea? Check.
Candles burnin'? Check.

Activate update powers!

Will the Food Riots of the late 1970s make stagflation better or worse?

A line from the teaser footage for "End of Time" has got me thinking. ( Spoiler, I guess, if you haven't seen this footage or The Waters of Mars. )

Once again, it's early.

Once again, the Canucks and Russians outnumber the rest of us around three to one.

Once again, I'm trying to get gear on and it's awkward and a struggle and I'm half-asleep and wondering why the hell I'm doing this.

Only now it's my kids, not me.

G and I had extensive talks. I told him "I will never coach your hockey again" and he is allowed to say "mom coaching was an unmitigated disaster" without fear of reprisal. I made it so clear he was not expected to attend practice Sunday morning he almost thought he wasn't invited. Getting him gear was a last-minute scramble through the massive boxes of the stuff in the basement (seriously? six pairs of kids' hockey pants? I don't have that many children). He borrowed half the gear he was wearing from the coaches' stash.

OK, secret. I watch him skate, I watch him play and I fucking thrill.

Just now... I keep it to myself.


L's a different animal than G is, was, in the locker room and on the ice. She's exacting, energetic and determined in a way that borderlines on the obsessively ferocious. We do not tolerate hair in our face. We do not tolerate our gloves askew. We will continue to struggle after the puck even when we are crying from total fatigue and frustration.

I went easy on her. I let her brother take her out on the ice, glad that the kids' practice is open and friendly and the coach didn't mind having her there even though she can barely stand up. My policy was firm: hands. Fucking. Off. Even my coach said, nothing screws hockey up faster than a parent getting involved.

But she couldn't keep her feet, and G, I realized suddenly... possibly for the first time since I first put skates on him at age 2, really, really wanted to skate. So I shuffled out onto the ice in my uggs, and told him to go have fun, and took her to the other zone to let her sort her shit out.

Here was the rule: the world ends if I don't have my hand on her jersey. Folks, I don't have to actually do anything, I just have to grab a fistful the big old 7

- G's number, G's old jersey, faded and stained -

and hang on. Within a few minutes of struggling she had already figured out to get up one knee up, one knee down. She refused to try without her stick. She fell hundreds of times. Hundreds, I swear to god. She lay on the ice and stretched out her arm so she could tap the puck with her stick again. She skated to the goal solo just so she could shoot on it.

I held my tongue.
I didn't coach her, I just encouraged and offered a suggestion or two then shut up again. I let her do it herself.

You know, while my toes froze off.

I stood eventually with the other parents - I'm serious, half the kids there were Canadian and Russian - and one of the dads and I chatted and he has a son who plays for Towson (D1, who knew, time to go watch some games), and another son who played junior AAA or whatever, and meanwhile he must have had like ten kids out there on the ice, one of whom was his three year old granddaughter.

(A couple of times he was worried about her being cold and tried to get her come off the ice.

She refused.)


I watched, you know. I watched because I'm a parent and I remember when G was two years old and could barely walk and when he fell a hundred times and I had my fist in the back of his jersey and sometimes he'd just hang there like that and wave his stick around. Now he's like this, you know, he's easy out there. Easy, like his personality. Unhurried, laid back, never taking shit too seriously and even when his skating on the rental skates is utterly without technique somehow he's fluid, graceful.

He's so different from me, out there. No angst. No wound up over-intense teethgrinding.

Don't get me wrong - he came off the ice beet-faced and sweating. He was wiped the rest of the day.

But he had fun. He looked like he was having fun.


I think it's dangerous to speculate too much about a parent's motives in their child's success at a thing. It's too complicated. There's too much.

I grew up with the thing that I loved, that I did every day most of my life, that I was really, really good at, controlled by someone else.

There are lines between encouragement and pressure. Lines between participation and control. I guess that's part of being a parent, you know?

Knowing when to be there with them, hand in their jersey.

When to just stand back, admire and love the hell out of them and leave them to enjoy, try, fail, struggle and succeed for and by themselves.

What I Did on My Mid-November Vacation
by Hannah Wolf Bowen, age twenty-seven and change

I went to see another bad movie with glvalentine !

Yes, that bad movie. Because we do not learn. And do not value our lives. And cannot be taught.

We survived! And if you click this here link, you, too, can take pleasure in our suffering.

(Insult to injury: the dessert truck is no more? Not okay, you guys!)

Early New Year's resolution: pick better event movies, yo.

I think it's interesting that Eureka has a Home Hardware store.

Apparently, there's a new Universal Soldier movie coming out. With Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren reprising their roles. And a part of me--the part that's still in high school--actually wants to see this. And that's terrible.

Poll #1489350
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 107

Who'd win?

Worked over the weekend, but didn't get quite as much done as I'd hoped to. Jeff's home this week, which means he comes to my office with housecleaning questions while I'm trying to work. I'm really late getting started today, which makes me grumbly (I also slept through the alarm this morning and the kids were nearly late for school.)



Back to work now.

Philcon was great. I had a lot of fantastic conversations and ran into a lot of old friends as well as meeting new ones. (age not specified in that description. *grin*)

There was the crowd of GSHW Folks: Pat Lundrigan, Ed Greaves, Jon Gibbs, Gary Frank (and wife Nancy), Eileen Watkins, Hildy Silverman (and husband Dave.) I don't think I even actually saw Dina Leacock although I know she was there.

The Dark Quest dealer's room crowd and related friends: Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Mike McPhail, James Daniel Ross, Bernie Mojzes, Linda Saboe, C.J. Henderson, Christine Morris, and minions. (Minion "Bob" in his Star Wars uniform was quite impressive guarding the doors to the con room... unfortunately I think Darth Vader passed by at some point and he died a hideous death.)

Other Dark Quest authors around the con: John Grant (Paul Barnett)(with wife and wonderous agent Pam), Keith R.A. DeCanDido, Charles Gannon, Jonathan Maberry... I missed actually getting a chance to talk to Bud Sparhawk and several others.

Other dealer room friends: Daniel-Gary Holderman, Beth, Thiemba Ferfuson, Chris the Sword Vendor (can't recall the business name at the moment)

Good panels and conversations with: Gordon Linzer, John Moore, Kt Pinto, Larry Johnson, Genevieve Iseult Eldredge, J.R. Blackwell, Wrenn

And those were just the names I remembered. Next time I want a motorized steampunk wheelchair so I don't have to be on my feet all the time. After the SFWA Party on Saturday night it would have helped deal with the wobbling. *grin*

The interesting thing about Collision

SPOILERS
( Read more... )

The cover shown here: is that the Steele Savage cover listed on isfdb or the Murray Tinkelman?

You can try to kill James Lowder's zombie anthologies but they keep coming back. Just like the undead. The new one is The Best of All Flesh. It's the super-zombie of zombie anthologies, methed up on death and ready to eat your brains.

If you missed the earlier All Flesh books, you can make up for it now with this collection of the best in the series. With stories by tobias_buckell, jimhines, scottedelman, and all the other folks you can see listed on the back cover below. Including yours truly.



The next time I blog I ought to say something about the story that's reprinted in here. "Fading Quayle, Dancing Quayle" is, among other things, a zombie love story. Because everyone deserves a chance at love, even zombies. And I should mention the great email I got about the story last year from Leonard Richardson. The book goes on sale next week, so if I haven't said something about it by then, remind me.

From time to time, you come across authors talking about how their books are their babies.  I’ve been thinking about the release of The Mermaid’s Madness [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], and decided to see how well the analogy holds up.

Part 1: Creation.  It took me one year to finish the manuscript that would become The Mermaid’s Madness, and that’s without my editor’s revision requests.  It took me mumble minutes to finish … er … well, to finish my part in the creation of what would become my child.  (On the other hand, at least my wife didn’t ask for revisions!)

Part 2: Prepublication.  It takes roughly nine months for a human baby to develop and be born.  It took about ten months for finished copies of Mermaid to start showing up in bookstores.  In both case, you have some beautiful milestones along the way.  The first ultrasound and the first glimpse of your cover art.  Preparing the baby’s room, and redesigning the web site to make room for the new book.  The baby analogy holds up better here.

Part 3: Release.  Labor is not a fun experience.  We were back and forth to the hospital several times.  The doctors tried and failed to induce labor.  In the end, both of my children were born via C-section, basically cutting my wife open and tugging the kids out.  This is not a gentle process, folks.  It was like trying to remove a basketball from a too-tight package.  The books, on the other hand?  My publisher shipped ’em to me in a Fed Ex. box.

Part 4: The Real World.  Very few people will tell you your newborn baby looks like a cross between a bulldog and a California Raisin.  People have no such reluctance when it comes to reviewing your new book.  The real baby is snuggled, fed, burped, bathed, and rocked to sleep.  Your books will receive no such love.  Some will be forgotten in the back room.  Others will linger on the shelves, along with tens of thousands of others.  Those lucky enough to find a home will have their spines cracked, and after a brief relationship, will end up squeezed onto a bookshelf and left there for months or years to come.

Part 5: Letting Go.  Your baby will likely be with you for at least 18 years.  Your book?  You’ll be lucky if it’s still on the bookstore shelves to celebrate its first birthday.  Within a month, many of those books will be setting out on their new career: stripping.  Front covers are wantonly ripped away in an orgy of shelf reorganization, and soon you’ll find these prematurely aged paperbacks discarded in back alley dumpsters.

Part 6: The Next Child.  I’ll be honest, I rarely think about Mermaid these days.  I’m lavishing all of my love and affection on Snow Queen.  This will be my seventh book.  I hope to pop out at least thirty over the course of my career.  Forget octomom, I wanna be tridecadad!  Children, on the other hand?  I love both of my children dearly, but I don’t know whether I could handle a third.

In conclusion, myth busted.  A book is not a baby.  Tune in next week when I talk about how dingos ate my book.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

It's been a while since I've had a Dragon Age update post, right? Right. LJ cutted for those sick of this and for spoilers, naturally.

( I look good in a dress. )

I am discovering that people who take non-standard routes to become parents fall into two groups, when it comes to solidarity.

1. You are becoming, or have become, a parent by some means other than a fertile, heterosexual, & monogamous marriage? Hey, me too; we are alike. Nice to know there are other families like mine.

2. I am becoming, or have become, a parent by a means that, while not simple, is on the right & "normal" side of an invisible line. You are a crazy freak who is doing something unnatural and creepy.

*sigh*

Happy birthday, whouseknecht!

To bed way too late (well, I was writing) and up way too early. Think this is going to be one of those days.

Look at this!



A watery view out our front window, making the fall colours of our smoke bush look like a watercolour.

We're having some pretty serious November here. Storms blowing through with lots of rain and wind and hail. One night I couldn't sleep because the frequent lightning flashes were like someone strafing a flashlight across my face again and again. There is some glorious sun and beautiful skies then more rain rain rain. Good thing I like rain.

Had a busy but weekend in sunny San Jose at World Fantasy Con, where I saw loads of people I'd wanted to see but missed many others. Damn. I had a good time but I was hoping to meet some people I knew were there, but I never managed to. We had a fun Clarion West get-together, fun dinners, parties, hanging out talk talk talking.

Then the fates gave me nearly a week of normal life again until, when Jim and I were watching Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire dance in Roberta, I suddenly started coughing. Chills and fever followed, and I kept that fever for a week. A week, people! I don't think I've ever had a fever that long before. Luckily the Wednesday was officially a holiday, or I would have burned through five days of sick leave rather than four. Yet another week later I still have a cough from it, but I'm so happy not to have a fever I don't mind. Really, I don't. *Cough, cough*

November is whipping past so fast I can't grab hold of it to make it slow down so I can catch up.

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For my recent listening, reading, and writing adventures, see Les Semaines.

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