Too funny not to share

From the website Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:

Good-bye, Anne McCaffery

You gave me dreams of dragons.

Anne McCaffery, 1926-2011

SFContario!

This weekend is SFContario!

I'm tearing myself away from NaNoWriMo (32,819 words, by the way, which puts me past last year's count. YAY!) to staff the Dragon Moon Press table, which this year will feature:

When the Hero Comes Home (anthology), edited by Gabrielle Harbowy and Ed Greenwood

Small Magics and Cold Magics by Erik Buchanan (of course)

Destiny's Blood by Marie Bilodeau

Triptych by J.M. Frey

Authors J.M. Frey and Marie Bilodeau will both be at the convention (Marie on Sunday only), and both will happily sign books whenever they get the chance.

Also, panels!

Weapons and Armour - Fri. 8 PM, Parkview
An examination of the historical and ongoing technological race
between weapons and the equipment that makes them obsolete. (Erik
Buchanan, Stephen B Pearl, Adam Shaftoe(M), David Stephenson)

Are there any new stories? Sat. 4 PM, Parkview
It's been said that there's a limited number of stories - the number
varies with who's saying it - but each generation of writers seems to
come up with a few truly new ones. How can you break out of the
classic story forms and do something really new, while still being
understandable to readers? Is it even worthwhile to try? (Erik
Buchanan, Derek Kunsken, Ira Nayman(M), Craig Russell, Michael
Swanwick)

Accents and Speech Patterns - sun 11 PM Ballroom BC
When representing accents and ways of speaking in fiction some authors
choose to add slang terms while others may write entire novels in a
vernacular accent. When is it too much? Is it worth sacrificing
readability for authenticity? Our panel will give tips, strategies and
techniques for accurately representing speech in fiction. (Richard
Baldwin, Erik Buchanan, Ian Keeling, Stephen B Pearl(M), Robert
Charles Wilson)

So do come by this weekend, if you have a moment and want to have some fun. It's a great little con and this year is hosting the Aurora Awards.

Or, if you don't have the cash to spare, but want to get your hands on some fine DMP books, the dealer's room is open to the public from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

A bit of fun...

As I mention from time to time, I'm a fight director and an actor. About a week ago, my friend Kevin Robinson, a stunt coordinator, asked me to come out and stunt-double for an actor on a show he is working on.

So I said yes.

The video is a bit dark, but that's me, wearing a wig and padding, on the left.

A great bit of fun, thanks to Kevin and Chris Mott, his assistant, who made sure I was safe and that most everything went off smoothly and on time.

J.M. Frey's Triptych makes Publisher's Weekly Top Books of 2011

Congratulations to J.M. Frey for a great debut novel! Looking forward to seeing many more good books from you!

Here's the link!

And in case you don't know about Triptych, learn more and buy it here.

Well done, J.M.!

See you at SFContario!

Nanowrimo - week one round up

Well, got through the first week and got 15,223 words.  My goal was 17,000, but still, not bad at all.

I had a strong start last year, too, but didn't make the finish. I only managed about 30,000 words.  Just like last year, life is remarkably busy and I have a convention right in the middle of it.

So the real challenge this year is to show a little more self-discipline than I did last year with my free time.

On a good night, I can write a thousand words in about an hour (maybe a bit longer. I tend to lose track of time).  If I can keep up my self-discipline for the next three weeks, I can easily put down 1500-2000 words a night. But there are things I'm going to need to do:

Get enough sleep: I never do, and with a month like this I really need to, which means

Stay on schedule:  Even tonight I'm up later than I should be. I live on a tight schedule most of the time, and this month, it's tighter than most. I need to get my writing done in the time I have (usually 1 to 2 hours a night) and get to sleep by 10:30 p.m. so I can get up at 5:30 a.m. and

Exercise: I really need exercise. It keeps my brain alive and keeps my damaged bits from falling apart entirely. Also, it's fun.

Stay away from coffee: I know, everyone talks about living on caffeine during Nanowrimo. I'm highly sensitive to the stuff and drinking it messes me up after a few days.  Drinking it during the day leaves me exhausted at night, drinking it at night means no sleep, and no sleep means no creativity and no writing.

So that is the end of Week 1. Let's see what week 2 will bring!

In Time

Went out to the movies last night in the company of four lovely women (you know who you are) and saw "In Time."

Fun little film. Nothing too deep, nothing too groundbreaking. The whole "time is money" thing worked fairly well, and the whole movie was a fairly straightforward allegory for corporate greed. It's also a not bad chase money. And while the ending was predictable, it was fun predictable.

For the most part I liked it. The one thing that I really didn't like was Amanda Seyfried's shoes.

Seriously. The shoes. Because I don't care how much you practice running (and her character wouldn't have practiced much before she met Justin Timberlake's character) no one runs that fast in 5 inch spike heeled platforms.

I know Amanda is short and needed to be in frame with Justin, but couldn't they have found a nice pair of combat boots for her? Just for believability's sake.

(Of course, making a movie about people who turn 25 and then only have a year to live unless they earn more time, chances are believability wasn't high on the list).

Still, it was a good bit of fun and all four of the women with me assured me that Justin looks cute with his shirt off. So if you like a good gritty near-future sci-fi action movie, I'd give this one a try.

Just ignore the shoes.

SFContario Schedule

Hi Folks

I'll be at SFContario from Friday November 18 to Sunday November 20. Mostly I'll be staffing the Dragon Moon Press table, selling books and signing away madly. But I also managed to land on three panels this year. Here they are:

Weapons and Armour - Fri. 8 PM, Parkview
An examination fo the historical and ongoing technological race
betweeen weapons and the equipment tha tmakes them obsolete. (Erik
Buchanan, Stephen B Pearl, Adam Shaftoe(M), David Stephenson)

Are there any new stories? Sat. 4 PM, Parkview
It's been said that there's a limited number of stories - the number
varies with who's saying it - but each generation of writers seems to
come up with a few truly new ones. How can you break out of the
classic story forms and do something really new, while still being
understandable to readers? Is it even worthwhile to try? (Erik
Buchanan, Derek Kunsken, Ira Nayman(M), Craig Russell, Michael
Swanwick)

Accents and Speech Patterns - sun 11 PM Ballroom BC
When representing accents and ways of speaking in fiction some authors
choose to add slang terms while others may write entire novels in a
vernacular accent. When is it too much? Is it worth sacrificing
readability for authenticity? Our panel will give tips, strategies and
techniques for accurately representing speech in fiction. (Richard
Baldwin, Erik Buchanan, Ian Keeling, Stephen B Pearl(M), Robert
Charles Wilson)

Looking forward to seeing folks there!