It's a Nanowrimo day

I've updated He's Dead, Jim! with my report for Where No Man Has Gone Before. Before the more acute of you (I originally wrote "anal types" but I decided to be more tactful :-) get on my case...yes, I know Frank Poole wasn't the one to say this line to HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey (it was his partner, Dave Bowman), but I figured the reference still worked. Don't forget that you add this feed if you're on LJ (thanks again for setting this up, Rob!).

Big news on the home recording studio front: I have a MOTU 828! Well, almost. "Epi_lj" and I rendezvoused on a street corner yesterday afternoon after LJ-ing and e-mailing about an 828 he was thinking about selling on eBay until he read about my dilemma in Blatherings. I felt so covert, as if we were exchanging contraband; I found myself wishing I owned a trenchcoat. Anyway, I met Epi (not his real name, obviously) at a Toronto Nanowrimo get-together some years ago, and we've been keeping in contact via LJ ever since.

Anyway, Epi is kindly letting me try out the 828 to see if it works with my computer before I pay him. Jeff's going to help me test it out this weekend...please keep your fingers crossed for me! I'm SO excited about this!! If this works, it means I can start recording on my laptop; I'd be using Garageband (which can record up to 8 tracks at once, by the way, not 2). It means I can add a flute track to Seanan's CD. It means I don't have to rely on the tinny little mike built into my laptop. It means possible other recording projects. Lots of potential musical goodness!




The Nanowrimo where I met Epi, by the way, was the one where I also wrote the rough draft of the same novel that is currently out there, hopefully being accepted by a publishing house even as I type.

And while we're on the topic of Nanowrimo, looks like I'll be doing some cartoons during November for the Nanowrimo Web site. Look for an announcement on the site about this next month! I won't be participating in Nanowrimo this year myself; I want to focus on my existing writing projects.

I'm hoping to check out The Word On The Street tomorrow. It's been six years (!) since I had my own booth at Word on the Street, for Inkspot.

Hey, has anyone out there used BookMooch? I found out about this from an Inside The Net podcast. Sounds like a fun to way to get rid of old books and get new ones, so I'm going to try it out. I did try Bookcrossing, but I never heard of any of my books being picked up (at least no one filled out the online form for them) and I kept imagining the books being dumped in the trash at the end of the day. At least with BookMooch, the recipients actively WANT the books. I'll let you know how it goes.




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More TVstuff

Hey all. After seeing some of the comments posted in LJ, I thought I should clarify yesterday's Blathering:

- I actually do NOT believe that TV is the work of the devil.

- There IS such a thing as good TV programming.

- Indulging in "bad" TV once in a while won't melt your brain.

My post was focused on Jeff's and my choice to go without cable tv for a while and the resulting benefits thus far, NOT an exhortation for the rest of you to do the same or a condemnation of those who don't.

I enjoyed reading about some of you who have been through similar experiences, by the way. Especially fifona's:

"About a year after we got married we decided to give up TV completely, thinking we would spend more time together, be more active, and read a lot more books. The money we saved on the TV Licence (a British phenomenon I'm not sure you have) was quickly spent on magazine subscriptions more than books, we spent more time going to evening classes for our own individual rather than shared interests and then....umm.... then we had a baby!

So all in all, it was not quite the outcome we expected! :-D"



Speaking of good TVstuff, check out Tanya Huff's announcement about a yet-untitled TV series based on her Blood books; looks like casting's been finalized. Here's the IMDB listing using "Blood Ties" as a temporary title. Christina Cox plays Vicki, Kyle Schmid plays Henry and Dylan Neal is playing Mike Celluci. Woohoo, how cool is that?

Aw geez. I wish I could just subscribe to the Space Channel...

If you haven't read Tanya's Blood Books, by the way, you can now order them in collections from Amazon:







I have no idea why that last book has a smaller image on Amazon and I'm too lazy to re-size it.

Anyway, I LOVE this series; it's creepy, sexy and funny at the same time. Totally engrossing reads, and I love Tanya's writing style throughout. Hey, and you can buy the first collection for just US$7.99 from Amazon! That's an incredible deal, considering it's a collection of two books. Far cheaper than paying for a movie ticket these days, and you're also much more likely to enjoy yourself.

But I digress.

Check out the e-mail I got yesterday:

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From: Heather Teta
Date: Sep 21, 2006 3:10 PM
Subject: ABC seeks families of filkers! $20,000!

Dear Sir or Madam,

I'm a Casting Producer with ABC Television and we're looking for great families who share a love science fiction or fantasy art, music, movies and television. We're looking for families who love sci-fi so much that they create their own music, stories or comic books together in that genre. We're looking for those creative families that attend conventions or gatherings – whether to perform together or to watch other talented filkers at work. We're looking for families who march to the beat of their own drum – families who are creative, quirky and fun. We're looking for those fun, larger than life characters who aren't afraid to be different.

We're currently casting for ABC's hit family show, 'Wife Swap!' Please don't be confused by the title - "Wife Swap" is a family show on ABC primetime. The premise is simple: two moms from two very different families get the opportunity to swap lives (but not bedrooms - everyone has their own!) for a week to experience what it's like to live a different lifestyle - and to see what they can teach each other about their own! In this case we're looking to feature creative families with unique interests and hobbies - and all the fun that goes along with it. I would greatly appreciate you forwarding my information on to any of your family members, friends, and associates who might be interested in sharing their lives with us for a week!

All featured families will receive a $20,000 financial honorarium - and $1000 goes to anyone who refers a family that makes it on the show! We are looking for two parent families with children (between the ages of 5 and 18) who are ready for adventure! I appreciate your assistance in reaching out to these great families and look forward to hearing from you soon!

Best,

Heather Teta
Heather Teta| Casting Producer | ABC Television - Wife Swap

--

Apparently others in the filk and other fannish communities received this letter or one very much like it as well. This SO looks like a "hey, let's make fun of how weird sf fans can be" episode. I'm sure they'll find someone, but so far it looks as if all my fannish friends plan to stay far away from this.



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20 months without cable TV

Jeff has introduced me to the TV series, "Rome." Some GREAT writing here. Good thing, too, else I'd be way too turned off by all the gore to keep watching. Jeff and I both love relying on DVDs rather than TV; we've been without cable TV for 20 months now, and neither of us miss it. I estimate we watch about 1-3 hours of movies and/or recorded TV shows a week at most...FAR less than back when we had cable.

I admit there are times when I feel a wistful twinge, especially when some of my favourite shows start their new seasons, knowing I have to wait. I get used to hearing the occasional spoiler of shows that haven't come out on DVD yet.

But y'know, so far I've found the payoff well worth it.

I'm doing a lot more reading, as I've mentioned before. And learning new skills. Right now, I'm learning Quickbooks and XHTML. Quickbooks because I've finally come around to the fact that I need to be more organized about my finances; my freelance income has also been climbing, which helps with the motivation. I bought Quickbooks For Dummies at Chapters/Indigo earlier this week because it seems geared toward my level. :-)

As for XHTML...as I mentioned in Technonerdgirl recently, I find that the more I learn about CSS, the more I realize I need to learn about other stuff as well. Like XHTML. I'm determined to clean up my messy hackwork HTML code! Right now I'm working through an XHTML tutorial on Lynda.com as well as continuing a tutorial on CSS Design. I watch bits at a time, whenever I take an arm break.



I'm also using non-TV time (time I used to spend watching TV in the old days) to do more music. Did some more work on my Chocolate song last night. I'm starting to transcribe the five vocal parts in Finale. A bit tricky, since I'm also learning how to use Finale at the same time...the old version of Finale (which won't run on my new machine) had a VERY different user interface.

Another bonus of avoiding TV is that it gets me off my butt! I sit all day in front of the computer, after all. Now I do more running after work, working in the garden, taking walks. Some days it's tougher to get exercise than others, particularly when I haven't been exercising in a couple days in a row (funny how exhausting not moving around can be).

Still no word from the publisher about my novel, but I'm plowing ahead with other writing projects meanwhile. My "2006 overview of the book and magazine industry" article for Writer's Digest magazine is due next week. I finally decided to splurge and subscribe to Publisher's Weekly. I've been resisting for a long time because of the hefty subscription fee, but so far it's been SO worth it. For more details on why I finally decided to subscribe, see my Will Write For Chocolate blog post (below the comic strip).

Life's good right now, and I'm grateful. Yay, and I get to see my friend Luisa today!



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Parry and Carney

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated. The particular strip above refers to a recent plot development in Parry and Carney; Parry and Carney is a niche comic strip by a paleobiologist who also runs The Dinosauricon (http://dino.lm.com). Carney eats everything, true to his nature. In fact, he ate Parry in the first strip. :-D

I rarely understand Mike Keesey's blog posts, though I love some of his blog titles, like "In the Mesozoic, No One Can Hear You Scream". Despite my ignorance of paleobiology, however, I've gotten hooked on his comic. :-) I especially love the two most recent creatures he's introduced, Ferd and Dan. Deep down, I know Ferd's and Dan's days are numbered, but I can't help but nurture a feeble hope that they may be spared Parry's fate.

In honour of Parry and Carney's one year anniversary, I posted the following in Mike's comment board:


A SONG FOR CARNEY
In honour of the one-year anniversary of Parry & Carney
By Debbie Ridpath Ohi

Carney, here's a song for you
And though it has no chorus
or music, hey, it's hard to find
a rhyme for carnotaurus.

As for parasaurolophus,
a rhyme's out of the question,
Besides, Carney bit off Parry's head
without trace of indigestion!

THE END


In response, Mike has challenged readers of his comic to come up with a rhyme for "parasaurolophus." No one has so far (well, except for him :-). If you think of one, I urge you to go over to this comments board and post!



Speaking of songs, thanks to Peter Alway for posting his lyrics about mergansers in response to my post about the merganser ducklings. You can hear the lovely tune here and see the lyrics here.




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Urban Tapestry on MySpace and our NEW DRUMMER!

The new Urban Tapestry MySpace page is up. The graphics above and below were created for this UT page. I'm going to re-do the group collage when I have more time...I know the lighting's wonky.

Just making modifications to the stylesheet for this page and my own MySpace page has taught me more about CSS. Thanks to those who helped me test the UT page with different browsers!

Anyway, you can hear four full tracks on our MySpace page:

THE LADY is based on Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire and was written by one of my music partners, Jodi Krangle. Jodi runs The Muse's Muse, an excellent resource for songwriters. The Lady won a Pegasus Award for Best Song a couple years ago.

THE FRIENDSHIP SONG is by me and is about friendships, sort of. :-) Recorded in concert.

ANOTHER STORY started out as a children's song by me, but got a bit darker than I expected. I took the unfinished song to my music partner Allison Durno, and she finished it by coming up with a great chorus. Recorded in concert.

HOMECOMING is by me, and is based on Ray Bradbury's short story "The Rocket Man" from his collection, R Is For Rocket. It's about love and loss. Recorded in concert.



Allison, Jodi and I had a great practice last night. We did a lot of GAfilk planning and (*gasp) even played some music! Our get-togethers do tend to be more social than work...hey, the three of us are FRIENDS as well as music partners...but we get more serious when there's a gig coming up.

Well, as serious as Urban Tapestry gets. We do have fun when we get together.

I haven't told Allison and Jodi yet, but I think the group needs a drummer. Not just any drummer, mind you, but this particular drummer. Thanks to Jeff for the tip!

Today's Blathering is shorter so you have time to finish reading yesterday's mega-huge entry, by the way.

:-D

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