inkygirl

So I went into technonerdgirl mode yesterday and created Inkygirl (http://www.inkygirl.com).

Yeah, yeah, I know I just finished writing a Blathering about shutting down online projects so I can focus more on my writing. But if you read the entry closely, I only talked about shutting down some NON-WRITING projects. :-)

The fact is, I was already bookmarking interesting-looking writing-related sites, keeping a list of promising job listings for telecommuting writers, and doodling the occasional writing-related comic. Now I'm just putting it all in one place and giving it a name. I'm also hoping that this central page will help cross-promote my various writing-related projects. Eventually I may try to syndicate some of the content, but first I want to see how it goes. I've purposely set no firm update schedule.

I had been planning to learn PHP so I could pull content from multiple blogs into one place, but I just found out about a new Movable Type plug-in that does everything I need. The main Inkygirl page thus includes content from three separate blogs: my general Inkygirl blog, my writing comics blog, and my freelance job listing blog.

I'm also starting to experiment with Trackback, but still don't entirely understand how this works. What I do understand, however, looks pretty cool. I notice Harald uses this in his blog. I tried pinging one of his entries from a test MT blog, though, and it didn't seem to work (my ping didn't appear in his Trackback log).

Now that I've gone through the process of setting up Inkygirl, I realize how realtively easy from a technical standpoint (compared to starting up a print magazine) it would be to set up an online magazine or community blog if one had the time, disk space and knowledge. Hm....perhaps this is something I could write an article about.

Anyway, I've added a link to Inkygirl in the links menu in the column on the left.

Hope you're all having a great weekend!

Blatherpic:

I created this logo in Painter yesterday. Font: LunaITC TT-Bold.

sushi and high tea update

To those who are going to GAFilk this weekend, especially Jodi: have fun! I was the first Supporting Member this year. Not nearly as exciting as actually being able to attend, of course, but I'll take what I can get. I'm hoping to go next year; I've heard such great things about this filk convention. This year, Bob Asprin in Guest of Honor, Sherman Dorn is Toastmaster, Jeff Hitchin is Interfilk Guest.

Update re: Urban Tapestry's upcoming CD, "Sushi and High Tea":

As most of you already know, we're planning to release a new CD this fall, which will consist of tracks recorded live at Consonance, Conchord, and Didgeri-Douze when we were Guests of Honor. The playlist (may change slightly): Amanda, Another Story, Battle On, Dark Is Rising, Friendship Song, Homecoming, I Am Stardust, Monday, My Jalapeno Man, Neurotic Love Song, Star Sisters, Truth Is Out There, Waiting For Frodo.

I talked to Bill Roper (Dodeka Records) yesterday afternoon to sort out some CD specs. We're going to be including all the lyrics to the songs in our liner notes this time. I've volunteered to do the layout of the insert, and will probably be including some little cartoons. Beckett Gladney is doing the cover (yay!).

Links/News:

Looks like the Segway's being banned from several cities. Source: SiliconValley.com.





Today's Blatherpics:

Ginny gave the family Oasis, jackets as gifts at Christmas. Even the kids got little Oasis jackets, but they were too Christmas-hyped to pose for the photo. From left to right: JBR, Jeff, Debbie, me, Case. Yes, it gets somewhat confusing with two Debbies in the family. One Christmas, for example, someone drew my name for gifts, but inadvertently bought them all for the other Debbie. :-)

music moments

In a desperate effort to clear out more space in my office, I have started going through my piles of sheet music to try purging pieces I know I'll likely never play again. I don't play piano very much anymore; when I practice music, I prefer playing on my harp or guitar or flute or penny whistles. Our piano sits in our living room, sadly abandoned and embarrassingly out of tune. I couldn't justify the cost of the tunings if I wasn't playing the piano, plus the piano is in need of major ($$$) soundboard repairs.

I put aside "early learner" sheet music I accumulated while teaching piano over 20 years to give to Sara's and Annie's piano teacher. Was horrified to discover that I had actually kept my old flute music from HIGH SCHOOL BAND PRACTICES. Augh. That's carrying packrat tendencies too far, even for me.

I couldn't bring myself to throw out any of the pieces I was learning for my ARCT (piano teaching degree, Royal Conservatory of Music). I'm not sure how familiar some of you are with piano lessons, but at the senior levels, you can spend hundreds of hours studying a single piece. I remember my piano teacher and I going over every phrasing intonation, every note, every pedal marking in agonizing detail. Just playing the notes correctly didn't cut it; interpretation was a major part of the practical aspect of ARCT studies. After spending so long on a piece of music, it becomes a part of you, really.

And then I came across sheet music that I had given my brother as well as music that he was studying himself. It's been nearly ten years since his death, but I still clearly remember him practising piano at home, how he used to hunch over a bit at the shoulders, his eyes fixed in fierce concentration on the music. As I sorted through his old sheet music, I could hear the echoes of his favourite pieces flow around me in the way he used to play them on our well-loved upright piano back home, like dear friends I haven't seen in a long time but whose voices immediately evoke familiarity: Manuel de Falla, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy.

I struggled to pretend that I was just doing a simple organizational chore for a while longer but then gave up and had a really good crying jag while sitting there on our living room floor, my hands full of pages of sheet music covered with my brother's messy handwriting, trying not to get the paper wet.

Felt much better after.

I ended keeping much more sheet music than I expected, but I'd rather be a little cramped in my office than let go of some of these memories.





Links/News:

there.com is inviting beta testers to try out its new chat environment. Here's a Wired story about the "virtual universe" start-up.

Coming soon: Uru: Online Ages Beyond Myst!

Dontlink.com: Stupid linking policies info. "Don't Link to Us! links to sites that attempt to impose substantial restrictions on other sites that link to them."

Curious to see pics from the upcoming Return of the King? Look here.

dentists, Gwyneth Paltrow & bread

Had my annual dental check-up yesterday morning. Wasn't feeling sick enough to cancel, and my dentist is popular enough that I knew that trying to re-book would be a nightmare.

I used to dread dentists' appointments as a child. I was terrified of my dentist, who seemed very big and grumpy and gruff-voiced. He did not use freezing/anaesthetic when drilling, just for extractions. He would mutter "Shut up!" if we whimpered during treatment (my sister also remembers this). He was supposedly one of the best in the field, however, with an excellent reputation for working with children.

I love my current dentist. She is cheery and gentle and compassionate, so much so that even when she is causing me pain, I feel like hugging her because she so obviously hates causing me discomfort. When I arrived for my appointment yesterday, I couldn't help but notice the reams of holiday season cards displayed on the walls, the gift baskets overflowing into the hallway. I feel guilty for not sending my dentist a holiday season card or gift basket.





Played Gwyneth Paltrow for an hour last night. I've been neglecting her; I could tell from the way her D string stubbornly kept sliding out of tune, as if she was punishing me for ignoring her for so long.

I've decided to shut down Harpresource.com. I started it while I was in Philadelphia because I wanted a fun online project (Inkspot definitely wasn't fun anymore), but now I'm trying to cut down on non-writing projects so I can focus on my freelance writing.

One of my problems is that I've found that there are too many interesting things to do, but not nearly enough time to do them all. I don't understand people who say they're bored; I feel like jumping up and down and screaming at them (you think I'm kidding, but I'm not). It ties into my impatience with time-wasting people and activities. Life is too short and precious to fritter away. My advice to people who are bored: find something you're passionate about and pursue that, whether it's childrearing or writing or cooking or poetry or collecting widgets. And to clarify, relaxing and doing nothing on purpose is not the same thing as being bored (unless you're complaining about being bored, of course).

Anyway, I've realized that a crime almost as bad is to try pursuing too many things, because it means you don't go after any one thing properly, and you end up unhappy with all of them. I really liked Bilbo's line in Fellowship of the Ring: "I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread."

My goal is to cut down on the bread. :)

(I love food analogies.)





Links/News:

According to SeattlePI.com, a 19-year-old self-published his fantasy novel, heavily promoted it, then sold it and two unpublished sequels to Knopf for over $500,000. Not only that, but this guy is a budding artist as well! (check out his art gallery).

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Today's Blatherpics:

I took the top two while waiting in the dentist's chair at my appointment yesterday. The bottom image is a partial scan of my article in The Dollar Stretcher magazine, which arrived in the mail yesterday.

spacey

Definitely sick.

Went out yesterday to get a few ingredients I needed to make Tori no Usugiriyaki, the first recipe I'm trying out from Hiroko Shimbo's The Japanese Kitchen cookbook, a gift I received from Parki for my birthday last year.

Felt pretty spacey as I walked around, as if I was watching someone else through a fog. Fumbled with vegetables, trying to get them in their plastic bags. Got suddenly super-tired as I paid for my purchases, wanted desperately to just sit down in the aisle and take a nap.

I probably shouldn't have been cooking while I was sick but heck, I figured that Jeff was the one who gave me the cold so he likely couldn't catch the cold again right? Anyway, dinner turned out pretty well, despite my weird headspaciness. I purposely picked one of the easiest recipes I could find, which was basically thin-sliced chicken briefly marinated in a mixture of crushed sesame seeds, green onions, garlic, shoyu, honey, pepper, sesame oil, then pan-fried. I served it with rice and spinach, the accompaniment dishes suggested in the book.

Jeff's still sick, but is getting better. We both went to bed at around 9:30 pm. Blech.

Links/News:

Slashdot has an amusing thread about what The Lord of the Rings would look like if it were written by someone else.

Christopher Reeve will be guest starring in "Smallville", according to CNN.

William Gibson has a blog! (info from BoingBoing)