When book geeks turn to crime

Please think good vibes at my music partner Jodi, who had a scary experience on the highway with her husband on the weekend when some kids decided to go racing. Jodi's car was totalled, but she and James were fortunate enough to escape with just a few scrapes and bruises.



Happy birthday to Amanda Snyder!

Here's a photo of Scott and Amanda at OVFF a couple years ago:



Jeff and I continue to unpack the contents of the last storage locker. One of the boxes we've unearthed is of some of Jeff's childhood momentoes, saved by his mom. These small swimming trunks, for example, were embroidered with Jeff's nickname as a baby before his parents finally decided on an official name. Interesting (and somewhat scary) to think that I could have been married to someone named Spike:



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ComicLife

Thanks for the all the kind Aurora congrats after yesterday's post, everyone!

As I also mentioned yesterday, I have a new MacBook. Jeff spent most of yesterday transferring some essential stuff over from my old laptop, like Microsoft Word, Textmate, AppleMail, Safari and Corel Painter. Everything seems to be running smoothly so far, and Eliza is definitely faster than my old machine.

One app that came with the machine is ComicLife. You can see one of my first experiments below. It's a fun program, but seems to be mainly geared toward those who want to import photos than cartoonists.

Click on the image below to see a bigger version:



You can import images into each individual panel, but you can't use ComicLife to modify an image that isn't in Comic Life format. I created the comic above by creating the layout, adding word bubbles, saving a copy of the layout and exporting it into JPEG format, opening the JPEG file in Corel Painter, adding the drawings of me typing and talking, using the Lasso tool in Painter to copy the drawing in each frame and pasting it back into the appropriate panel in ComicLife, modifying the image in ComicLife until it was the right size and location (you can't do much other image modification in CL), importing the photo of Jodi, Sibylle and Allison, editing the word and thought balloons until they were properly placed, then exporting the whole file as JPEG. At that point, I could probably have opened the file up again in Corel Painter and added finishing touches, like colouring in backgrounds, etc.

Sounds like a major pain, but even as I was going through the process, I realized that it would get easier with practice and experimentation with shortcuts. I'm going to be experimenting more with ComicLife, and will probably use it for the occasional My Life In A Nutshell and Inkygirl comics. Here is my PROS and CONS list so far:

Pros and Cons of Using ComicLife

(I've only played around with CL for a few hours so far, so this list may change)

PROS:

- If you use one of CL's pre-made layouts, it's dead easy to set up panels.

- Lots of choice of template layouts.

- Each layout can be modified and saved.

- You can save styles.

- Easy to set up word bubbles, thought bubbles and narrative blurbs in comic-style with a straightforward drag-and-drop process.

- Easy to do a quick comic, especially using photos.

CONS:

- Word bubble set-up is limited in flexibility. As far as I can tell, you can't join up bubbles, something I find very handy when there are multiple exchanges within a single panel.

- You can't import multi-panel non-CL files. It would have been handy to be able to create the artwork and layout in Corel Painter, then have the option of adding word bubbles or other elements in Comic Life.

- No image editing in CL except for re-sizing and placement.

- It seems to me that you'd have basically the same style as others who use ComicLife. I haven't played around enough with the program to say this with confidence yet, however, so reserve judgement for now.

Jeff says he'll divorce me if I start up another comic. :-D

FYI, my comics so far include: Will Write For Chocolate, Inkygirl, My Life In A Nutshell, and Waiting For Frodo (now complete).

Computer games, Photo Booth and songs about chocolate

My new MacBook also came with some games and Photo Booth. The latter seems to be pretty popular these days, judging from the number of distorted face photos I've been seeing everywhere online these days. Reminds me of the days drop shadows were all the rage (including one incarnation of Inkspot, of course). Hey, and I have a built-in camera! Not sure if I'll be using it much...I used to have a Webcam back in my Inkspot days but y'know, I'm not so keen to have strangers peering at me while I'm working anymore.

I'll probably try out the games but end up not playing them. It's not that I don't like computer games...I just tend to get WAY too obsessed with the ones I like, pouring many hours of my life into them. The last time this happened was with SimPeople. Other of my game obsessions include SimCity, Civilization, Myst, and Rogue (the ascii version). If my tendons were 100%, I'd probably indulge in the occasional game obsession. Now, however, I'd rather spend the "arm points" doing writing, illustrating and doing music.

Speaking of music, I wrote some more of my multi-voice chocolate song for GAfilk on the weekend, scoring everything out on manuscript paper. It's not like anything else I've written (well, except that it's yet another FOOD SONG, of course :-), and I'm having some fun with it.



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Urban Tapestry's Aurora Award, my new MacBook

Above: Photo by Allison. See Allison's LJ post on the topic here. Allison's husband John was at Toronto Trek this year, and called yesterday to let her know that Urban Tapestry received an Aurora Award for "Fan Achievement (Other)" at the annual 2006 Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards ceremony (!).



According to the official site, the Prix Aurora Awards were created to highlight "the best in Canadian SF and fantasy." There are six professional awards (three English and three French), three fan awards, and one artistic achievement award (open to both pros & fans). "The Aurora awards are closest to the style of the Hugo awards (which are presented by the SF Worldcon) in the method by which they are selected. First there is a nomination phase to select a short list. Then a voting phase to pick the winner from the short list using the Australian voting method (this method has the voter rank their choices in each category). Each year a different convention or group has hosted the awards. The awards are financed by voting fees, by donations and by the host convention. There is no permanent funding." The Fan Achievement award we won is one of three Fan Achievement awards; the others are the Organizational and Publication categories.

Allison, Jodi and I were honoured to be nominated in the same category as Martin Springett, Don Bassie, Judith Hayman, and Larry Stewart this year. Thanks so much to those who nominated and voted for us.

You can find out more about the Prix Aurora Awards here.




Woohoo, my new MacBook arrived on Friday! Jeff's going to help me move my stuff from the old PowerBook G4 this week. My new laptop is smaller, faster, and I've named her Eliza (after my main character in Will Write For Chocolate.) Look out, world!

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Google-izing, face-to-face, and judging books by their covers

According to an article in yesterday's Washington Post, the word "google" has been officially added to the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. You can see the online entry here. I'll bet they threw quite the party at Google in celebration. :-)

Please note that this term should not be confused with the mathematical term "googol", which is the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeros. I remember first learning this term as a child and using it effectively in one-upmanship interactions e.g. "Yeah? Well I like Norm Brown a GOOGOL times more than you do!").

Writing's going well. I'm finding the "read out loud" method of proofreading is great, though slow. I've also been tightening up prose a bit as I go along.



I met one of my illustration clients in person yesterday; she's from Washington, but was visiting Toronto and wanted to take me out for lunch. Turns out she may hire me to do some writing as well! I love the Internet with its online communities, chat rooms, e-mail and other virtual interaction possibilities...but y'know, nothing can beat meeting someone face-to-face to get a clearer sense of what they're really like and for certain types of communication.

After the whole Inkspot thing, I was happy to be finally able to meet some of my Inkspot helpers in person, people with whom I had worked for years through e-mail...like Moira Allen (was my managing editor, now runs Writing-World.com), Sal Towse (markets editor, now has a great list of links of writers), Diane Turnshek (moderator for the SF writing for young people forum, is now actively involved with Alpha, an sf/fantasy/horror workshop for young writers) and Devorah Stone (now moderates the historical fiction forum on Writer's BBS).

Ever since an Unfortunate Incident some years back about which I will never Blather, I've grown leery about judging what people are like solely on the basis of their e-mails and blogs. I've found that some people are more obnoxious, submissive, or insecure in person that they come across online. I've also found that some are meeker in person that I would have expected after reading their blogs or read their e-mails, obviously much more comfortable behind a computer screen where they can say things that they would never say face-to-face.

It's one reason I could never develop a close friendship with someone I've never met in person. I'm not saying friendships like this can't exist, especially friendships that both parties know will always stay "virtual." For me, however, I'd first want to find out what my correspondent is really like face-to-face and get to know THAT person.

Thanks to those who responded to my book buying survey! I'm glad I'm not the only one who judges a book by its cover. :-) I also confess I'm influenced by paper quality, size of margins and the font.



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Eye check-ups and book buying survey

Click on the above updated My Life In A Nutshell comic to access the archives.



My eye check-up went fine. No more new holes in the back of my retina, yay! My optometrist did say that the tissue within the lasered area has changed but is anchored safely because of the lasering; if I didn't have the surgery when I did, I'd be blind in my left eye now.

And that's my cue for my annual post for those of you who haven't had an eye check-up within the past couple of years. Those of you already familiar with this story or who HAVE had a check-up recently can skip the next few paragraphs. A couple of years ago, on a routine eye check-up (I didn't even need a new prescription), my eye doctor happened to notice two very small holes at the back of my left eye. She said they may have been there for years and may not be a risk, but she had me to go a specialist, just in case.

The specialist did more tests, advised laser surgery to seal up the holes. During surgery, he discovered that the holes were worse than he thought, and that I had a subclinical detached retina. Even though I hadn't noticed any effects yet, I would have gone blind in that eye within 1-2 years had I not been treated in time. You can read more about the process and my experience here.

It still kind of freaks me out that the problem was discovered on a routine check-up...that I hadn't noticed any problems beforehand and hadn't even needed a new prescription. I go for check-ups every 6 months now.





Just finished reading:

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I very nearly didn't even look at this book in the bookstore because of its cover...I had figured it was a pure romance, a genre I don't tend to read. BUT I was intrigued enough by the title to read the blurb on the back, and was surprised to find that it was a supernatural-fantasy. Started reading, and got totally hooked.

Here's a survey: Do you ever buy a fiction book completely on whim? Or do you only buy books based on recommendations? If on whim, what prompts to buy a book? How much does the cover influence you? The title? The blurb on the back? Do you start reading the book in the store? I usually read at least the first few pages, to see if I like the author's writing style and to get a flavour of the book. If you mainly get your fiction books at the library, feel free to answer the survey the same way, in how you choose which books to take out.

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