Sunday, November 25
So I was checking my site stats the other day, as one does, and discovered an incoming link to my Mary Sue test. From Wikipedia.
The Wiki entry on Mary Sues, to be precise.
Well, that explains the odd pinging noise I heard a few days back. That was me gaining a level in Geek.
The actual Thanksgiving part of my Thanksgiving was great, as usual. Thanksgiving is really the only holiday my family believes in. We're anti-consumerist, anti-authoritarian heathens, which puts a damper on, uh, well, pretty much all American holidays, except the ones we can't be bothered to care about. But we all love to cook. A holiday for eating? Is a holiday we can really get behind. Some non-Thanksgiving things intruded to make this a rather stressful holiday -- mostly involving a specific employee/family member's poor sense of timing -- but the food, oh heaven. The food made up for it all.
In other news, Kith and Kin (the novel I prod with a sharp stick from time to time, to see if it's decided to live or die yet) has informed me that it thinks it would be better off with a first-person narrator.
...
...
...
*headdesk*
Okay, yes, I admit that would address some of the distance-from-narrator issues, and probably stick a patch over the slow start and the timing problems. However, comma, I am not rewriting eighty thousand words on a nine p.m. fit of inspiration. You thought Harmony needed a dead body, and look where that got us.
We will sleep on this. And in the morning, if writing an entire book from inside the head of a saturnine 600-year-old male still sounds like a good idea... we'll plot it out, dammit. Properly. No writing until we're sure this isn't the proverbial paintbrush waiting to back us into the proverbial corner.
God. My friggin' brain.
The Wiki entry on Mary Sues, to be precise.
Well, that explains the odd pinging noise I heard a few days back. That was me gaining a level in Geek.
The actual Thanksgiving part of my Thanksgiving was great, as usual. Thanksgiving is really the only holiday my family believes in. We're anti-consumerist, anti-authoritarian heathens, which puts a damper on, uh, well, pretty much all American holidays, except the ones we can't be bothered to care about. But we all love to cook. A holiday for eating? Is a holiday we can really get behind. Some non-Thanksgiving things intruded to make this a rather stressful holiday -- mostly involving a specific employee/family member's poor sense of timing -- but the food, oh heaven. The food made up for it all.
In other news, Kith and Kin (the novel I prod with a sharp stick from time to time, to see if it's decided to live or die yet) has informed me that it thinks it would be better off with a first-person narrator.
...
...
...
*headdesk*
Okay, yes, I admit that would address some of the distance-from-narrator issues, and probably stick a patch over the slow start and the timing problems. However, comma, I am not rewriting eighty thousand words on a nine p.m. fit of inspiration. You thought Harmony needed a dead body, and look where that got us.
We will sleep on this. And in the morning, if writing an entire book from inside the head of a saturnine 600-year-old male still sounds like a good idea... we'll plot it out, dammit. Properly. No writing until we're sure this isn't the proverbial paintbrush waiting to back us into the proverbial corner.
God. My friggin' brain.
Monday, November 05
Hi! I'm not dead! No thanks to all you people at the World Fantasy Convention, though. I think I have mizkit's cold now.
Dan thinks I should do a con report, probably so he doesn't have to. So here it is:
WFC Day One: This is Kat's Brain on Travel
The day went something like this: get up at 3 am. Drive to airport. Get on plane. Get off plane. Get on plane. Get off plane. Wait 3 hours for hotel shuttle (boo. Though we did meet some nifty people that way....) Arrive at one pm, approach a very closed-looking Registration to be told, "We're running a bit late." Respond with, "Actually, my husband and I are here to volunteer."
"Oh, thank god, down the hall and left and left again thank you thank you thank you...."
Stuff books in bags for three hours. Con is understaffed and overstressed -- pretty much the norm, really -- but fellow volunteers are still fun and we get our pick of the free books. Finally defeat Mt. Boxmore and check into our actual hotel room for a shower (Dan) and and unscheduled nap (me) before returning to Con Madness.
The rest of the night is a bit blurry, actually. I know we went to dinner with a bunch of cool people, and it was good dinner, and then we went to parties -- I distinctly remember propping up a wall and chatting with tambo for quite a while. And we committed Book, where by "we" I mean "Dan", and they would appear to be mizkit's books, so it must have been the Zombie party. Okay then. Kudos to the Zombies for providing Woodchuck cider, though in retrospect I probably shouldn't have been drinking it.
I woke up in my own bed, so I must have gone back to my hotel at some point. That is good to know.
WFC Day Two: Kat Is An Amusing Drunk
Had breakfast with the erstwhile roomies, who I had never met before and who were very cool. If I'd known it was the last real sit-down meal I was going to have for thirty-odd hours I might have sprung for something besides the fruit cup.
Then, volunteering: I spent five hours handing out the bags I had packed the day before to con attendees, many of whom were charmingly shocked to get a free bag of books and a box of cookies. The surprise! pre-shaken! bottles of mineral water we handed out were less charming. I dispensed warnings and napkins very freely.
Brief stop at the hotel room for my introvert fetal-curl time, and then jaylake's cheese tasting, which was lovely (and, thanks to Dan, supplied with a non-plastic knife), and then off for another three hours volunteering at the Cattle Call, also known as the mass autographing. It was a bit of a mess, but only the volunteers and staff knew that, so thus it still counts as a success. The high point of the evening was having Shana Cohen come to the table we were manning and dispense bourbon from her hip flask. Why? Who cares? It was bourbon.
Given that -- and given that I felt obligated to use up my free drink ticket shortly afterwards -- it was probably unwise to go directly to matociquala's chartreuse-and-bad-fanfic party directly after. But I did. Chartreuse is evil. It tastes of green, and there wasn't any food except cheese and chocolate, and the bad fanfic was, indeed, bad. Each person read aloud until they laughed. As I felt obligated to drink each time I passed the book, and as someone (actually, that may have been me) began livening things up by shouting "DRINK!" whenever we encountered a historical anachronism (Silk sheets! In sixteenth-century Scotland! Coffee! In sixteenth-century Scotland! Valhalla! In sixteenth-century incredibly Catholic Scotland!) or an unannounced point-of-view shift, and as I was kind of drinking in between anyway and have the alcohol tolerance of a flea, I got... is there a word for that? Oh, yes. Wasted. Completely and utterly shitfaced.
As a direct result of which, when the book came back around to me at something past one am, I managed to make it through something like three pages of bad, no good, truly diabolically awful sex scene without cracking up and with a certain degree of style. Persons who were in the room at the time may never look five o'clock shadow in the face again. So, yes, Kat is an amusing drunk.
elisem making me snort chartreuse up my nose, though -- that was just mean.
WFC Day Three: Kat Is An Amusing Drunk. Again.
There was no chartreuse hangover per se, but I crawled out of bed at the crack of noon feeling like aliens had borrowed my brain, performed esoteric experiments on it, and returned it to my head still wrapped in cotton wool. If you found the solution to my plot issue in there, guys, please send a postcard.
A few hours working the info desk cleared enough cotton for me to realize that living on ConSuite food for the entirety of the previous day wasn't helping. With this in mind we gathered up a motley crew of persons and dragged them out to eat. This was a good idea, and also grand fun. It was essentially my first meeting with suricattus, who is most funny and wise, and my first real chance to talk to mizkit, who is funny and fun. Dan and I put up a valiant fight to keep stillnotbored from paying for our dinner, but alas, we were overcome.
After that I went back to my hotel room and -- with some persuasion -- squoze into my brand-new leather bodice. As hoped, it went with the leather jeans and the tall boots. Dan made very appreciative noises. We returned to the con and toured a few parties, where other people made appreciative noises, before settling in the bar.
And here I once again must admit to an alcohol-related error in judgement. Cross my heart, people: I am not a lush. I am just a lightweight who doesn't get to drink in trustworthy company much. And doesn't think enough about what she drinks. Had I done so, I would have realized that the three whiskey sours were more than enough drink for me without my sampling freely from the various glasses and flasks of single malt circling the table. I mean, yes, they were all different varieties, educational purposes, et cetera, but. By the end of the night I was -- for only the second time in my life -- having severe difficulty walking. I was also startled by my own boobs. Have we had enough to drink, Kat? Why, yes. We may have.
(In my defense, the bodice did do interesting things to my chest region. It probably didn't merit the startled comment, but hey. As long as I have entertainment value.)
WFC Day Four: Kat Go Crash
Once again, no hangover. Instead I woke up feeling cheerful, alert, and extremely hungry. My metabolism, it is on the crack, yes?
After breakfast, we made the mistake of drifting into the dealer's room, where we committed Book. Multiple Book. Expensive Book. I think I got Dan out before we got into the triple digits, but I haven't had the courage to check our statement yet. Ran into swan-tower in the lobby, where we proceeded to hold a rambling socio-literary discussion that really should have reached critical mass and imploded into a black hole of sucking geekdom right about the time we started talking about Kit Marlowe, but luckily, we were at a con. So it didn't. I expect the hotel staff was relieved.
Then we waited. Some wanker pulled the fire alarm around 4 pm, so we all went and stood around outside for a bit and went back in, but it was generally agreed that this signaled the end of the con. People wandered off. Eventually, our cab came, and we wandered too.
All else was largely airport.
*****
Memo to self: next year, bring hollow leg. And better shoes.
Dan thinks I should do a con report, probably so he doesn't have to. So here it is:
WFC Day One: This is Kat's Brain on Travel
The day went something like this: get up at 3 am. Drive to airport. Get on plane. Get off plane. Get on plane. Get off plane. Wait 3 hours for hotel shuttle (boo. Though we did meet some nifty people that way....) Arrive at one pm, approach a very closed-looking Registration to be told, "We're running a bit late." Respond with, "Actually, my husband and I are here to volunteer."
"Oh, thank god, down the hall and left and left again thank you thank you thank you...."
Stuff books in bags for three hours. Con is understaffed and overstressed -- pretty much the norm, really -- but fellow volunteers are still fun and we get our pick of the free books. Finally defeat Mt. Boxmore and check into our actual hotel room for a shower (Dan) and and unscheduled nap (me) before returning to Con Madness.
The rest of the night is a bit blurry, actually. I know we went to dinner with a bunch of cool people, and it was good dinner, and then we went to parties -- I distinctly remember propping up a wall and chatting with tambo for quite a while. And we committed Book, where by "we" I mean "Dan", and they would appear to be mizkit's books, so it must have been the Zombie party. Okay then. Kudos to the Zombies for providing Woodchuck cider, though in retrospect I probably shouldn't have been drinking it.
I woke up in my own bed, so I must have gone back to my hotel at some point. That is good to know.
WFC Day Two: Kat Is An Amusing Drunk
Had breakfast with the erstwhile roomies, who I had never met before and who were very cool. If I'd known it was the last real sit-down meal I was going to have for thirty-odd hours I might have sprung for something besides the fruit cup.
Then, volunteering: I spent five hours handing out the bags I had packed the day before to con attendees, many of whom were charmingly shocked to get a free bag of books and a box of cookies. The surprise! pre-shaken! bottles of mineral water we handed out were less charming. I dispensed warnings and napkins very freely.
Brief stop at the hotel room for my introvert fetal-curl time, and then jaylake's cheese tasting, which was lovely (and, thanks to Dan, supplied with a non-plastic knife), and then off for another three hours volunteering at the Cattle Call, also known as the mass autographing. It was a bit of a mess, but only the volunteers and staff knew that, so thus it still counts as a success. The high point of the evening was having Shana Cohen come to the table we were manning and dispense bourbon from her hip flask. Why? Who cares? It was bourbon.
Given that -- and given that I felt obligated to use up my free drink ticket shortly afterwards -- it was probably unwise to go directly to matociquala's chartreuse-and-bad-fanfic party directly after. But I did. Chartreuse is evil. It tastes of green, and there wasn't any food except cheese and chocolate, and the bad fanfic was, indeed, bad. Each person read aloud until they laughed. As I felt obligated to drink each time I passed the book, and as someone (actually, that may have been me) began livening things up by shouting "DRINK!" whenever we encountered a historical anachronism (Silk sheets! In sixteenth-century Scotland! Coffee! In sixteenth-century Scotland! Valhalla! In sixteenth-century incredibly Catholic Scotland!) or an unannounced point-of-view shift, and as I was kind of drinking in between anyway and have the alcohol tolerance of a flea, I got... is there a word for that? Oh, yes. Wasted. Completely and utterly shitfaced.
As a direct result of which, when the book came back around to me at something past one am, I managed to make it through something like three pages of bad, no good, truly diabolically awful sex scene without cracking up and with a certain degree of style. Persons who were in the room at the time may never look five o'clock shadow in the face again. So, yes, Kat is an amusing drunk.
elisem making me snort chartreuse up my nose, though -- that was just mean.
WFC Day Three: Kat Is An Amusing Drunk. Again.
There was no chartreuse hangover per se, but I crawled out of bed at the crack of noon feeling like aliens had borrowed my brain, performed esoteric experiments on it, and returned it to my head still wrapped in cotton wool. If you found the solution to my plot issue in there, guys, please send a postcard.
A few hours working the info desk cleared enough cotton for me to realize that living on ConSuite food for the entirety of the previous day wasn't helping. With this in mind we gathered up a motley crew of persons and dragged them out to eat. This was a good idea, and also grand fun. It was essentially my first meeting with suricattus, who is most funny and wise, and my first real chance to talk to mizkit, who is funny and fun. Dan and I put up a valiant fight to keep stillnotbored from paying for our dinner, but alas, we were overcome.
After that I went back to my hotel room and -- with some persuasion -- squoze into my brand-new leather bodice. As hoped, it went with the leather jeans and the tall boots. Dan made very appreciative noises. We returned to the con and toured a few parties, where other people made appreciative noises, before settling in the bar.
And here I once again must admit to an alcohol-related error in judgement. Cross my heart, people: I am not a lush. I am just a lightweight who doesn't get to drink in trustworthy company much. And doesn't think enough about what she drinks. Had I done so, I would have realized that the three whiskey sours were more than enough drink for me without my sampling freely from the various glasses and flasks of single malt circling the table. I mean, yes, they were all different varieties, educational purposes, et cetera, but. By the end of the night I was -- for only the second time in my life -- having severe difficulty walking. I was also startled by my own boobs. Have we had enough to drink, Kat? Why, yes. We may have.
(In my defense, the bodice did do interesting things to my chest region. It probably didn't merit the startled comment, but hey. As long as I have entertainment value.)
WFC Day Four: Kat Go Crash
Once again, no hangover. Instead I woke up feeling cheerful, alert, and extremely hungry. My metabolism, it is on the crack, yes?
After breakfast, we made the mistake of drifting into the dealer's room, where we committed Book. Multiple Book. Expensive Book. I think I got Dan out before we got into the triple digits, but I haven't had the courage to check our statement yet. Ran into swan-tower in the lobby, where we proceeded to hold a rambling socio-literary discussion that really should have reached critical mass and imploded into a black hole of sucking geekdom right about the time we started talking about Kit Marlowe, but luckily, we were at a con. So it didn't. I expect the hotel staff was relieved.
Then we waited. Some wanker pulled the fire alarm around 4 pm, so we all went and stood around outside for a bit and went back in, but it was generally agreed that this signaled the end of the con. People wandered off. Eventually, our cab came, and we wandered too.
All else was largely airport.
*****
Memo to self: next year, bring hollow leg. And better shoes.
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