Sounding Off (and On)

National Novel Writing Month

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 03:22:30 GMT

Who's in?

I did NaNoWriMo last year and it was terrific. I got out of my comfort zone, out of the navel-gazing sci-fi world in which I'd spent the last few years, and the result was a standalone work that still holds my imagination a year later. Thing is, this year I'm so busy I can't find time to eat or sleep. Thing is, I hate who I am when I'm not working. Thing is, this year, I'm going to need some help.

Who else wants to write fifty thousand words in thirty days? It's actually not that big a deal -- just over fifteen hundred words a day -- we all probably come close to that on email and various social networking sites already. Really. This post is already over a hundred words long, and look how short it is to this point!

Do you write? Do you want to? Would you benefit from a little external nudging to help you? Do you want to try something crazy, something that forces you to silence that nagging editor in your head and just follow the characters wherever they want to go, for no other reason than the joy of creating something only you can create?

Sign up. Add me (amberdisa) as a writing buddy. Keep me honest. Help me remember that there is more to the world than the daily grind of a miserable commute and an uncertain future.

The website: http://www.nanowrimo.org/
The book: No Plot? No Problem

Seriously, who's in?

Yes, we may die, but...

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 03:59:54 GMT

The last few months have, officially, sucked.

Sadly I have let that suckitude overwhelm me. Did I write anything about the excitement of coming home from Jamaica, looking for a new house, starting a new job? No. Did I write anything when a dear friend announced she was pregnant? No. Did I write anything when some other dear friends won Crown Tournament? No. The last time I did an SCA post was Estrella War in FEBRUARY. Interesting thing is, in that post I mentioned a song I had learned from an An Tir bard.

Now, I find myself in the position of posting about that song again. It's a powerful song with a message I really need to hear. Why? Because a funny, inspirational person dear to me and many of my friends has died. She was young, younger than me by more than I liked to admit -- younger, and better, stronger, more alive, more brash and vivid, more everything. I did not realize how brightly her light shone into my life until it went away. It is somehow harder to see today.

My friends, my family, those who have touched my life: I love you. I'm an introverted person and my life tends to be consumed by the mundanity of daily details, but I love you. I'm sorry I'm a shitty correspondent. I'm sorry I don't call, I'm sorry that I vanish into my own world for weeks or months or years, and I'm really, really sorry I didn't take more time to catch up with my friend one cool day in fair Lyondemere, when she stopped what she was doing to give me a hug to welcome me back from a long absence.

There was a much longer version of this post, with a poignant story about the last time I saw her, and some asides and a lot of feeling sorry for myself, but Dreamwidth ate it. I don't have the heart to type it out again. The universe is probably telling me to quit with the self-pity and get on with things; I hereby submit.

For Kolfinna --

Yes we may die but we die with our teeth in their throats
Yes we may die but we die with their blood on our swords
Yes we may die but we die with our name on their lips
Yes we may die and the reaper is near
and he cuts a great swath and he claims a great tithe but he's ours
so we stand by his side with no fear and
Yes we may die but we know it and we can die well

Yes we may die but we die with the wind in our eyes
Yes we may die but we die with the drums in our veins
Yes we may die but the war horns still howl and we rise
Yes we may die but we die in our prime
and old age can not wither our arms or our blades or our pride
and our legends last long past old men, so
Yes we may die but we know it and we can die well

Yes we may die but mere death is not always defeat
Yes we may die but mere life is not all we can win
Yes we may die but the blood of our line never pales
Yes we may die and leave sweethearts behind,
but leave sons and leave daughters to take up the sword and revenge,
and our memories will push them like fire, so
Yes we may die but we know it and we can die well

Yes we may die but we die on our feet, not our knees
Yes we may die but we die in our lines, not our beds
Yes we may die and the doors of Valhalla swing wide
Yes we may die but the short road to glory
is paved with our blood and the foes' broken swords and it's ours
and the stars will blaze bright with our deeds, so
Yes we may die but we know it and we can die well
Yes we may die but we know it and we can die well.

Lyrics © 2003 Kathi Coutinho
Permission to perform in non-paying venues with this copyright attached, granted.
Permission to duplicate for non-profit purposes with this copyright attached, granted.
Source: THL Lucia Elena Braganza of the Midrealm

In lieu of a real post, a joke

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 03:23:36 GMT

I have been incredibly remiss. I have not posted to anything in over six weeks. I don't have time for a real post now, either, but I did want to say that I at least recognize how remiss I have been...

In lieu of something interesting about me, I present:

Phrases for tourists trespassing in remote jungles,
or How to say "Oh my God! There's an axe in my head!" in various languages

Afrikaans: O Gode! Daar's 'n byl in my kop!
Alsatian: Lever Gott! Es esch a Axe en miner Kopf!
Ancient Greek: O Theos mou! Echo ten labrida en te mou kephale!
Assyrian: iliya pashum ina reshimi bashu
Babylonian: iliya pashu ina reshimi bashu
Bengali: Oh Allah! Amar mathar upor bash poreche.
Bosnian: Boje moj! Sjekira mi je u glavi.
Danish: Oh min gud! Der er en oekse i mit hoved.
Dutch: O, mijn God! Er zit een bijl in mijn hoofd.
English: Oh my god! There's an axe in my head.
Esperanto: Mia Dio! Hakilo estas en mia kapo!
Finnish: Voi Luoja! Paassani on kirves!
French: Mon Dieu! Il y a une hache dans ma tete.
German: Oh mein Gott! Ich habe eine Axt im Kopf!
Greek: hristo mou! eho ena maheri sto kefali mou!
Hebrew: Elohim Adirim! Yesh Garzen Ba-Rosh Sheli
Hindi: Hay Bhagwaan! Mere sar mein kulhaadi hain.
Hungarian: Jaj Istenem, de fejsze van a fejemben!!
Icelandic: Gud minn godur! Thad er o:xi i ho:fdinu a mer.
Irish: Mo Dhia! Ta' tua sa mo cheann.
Italian: Dio mio! C'e' un' ascia nella mia testa!
Japanese: ahh, kamisama! watashe no atama ni ono ga arimasu.
Klingon: ghay'cha'! nachwIjDaq betleH tu'lu'!
Latin: Deus Meus! Securis in capite meo est.
Latvian: Ak Dievs! Man ir cirvis galva!
Malayalam: Entey Deiwame, entey thalayil oru kodali undei.
Maltese: Alla tieghi, ghandi mannara f'rasi
Maori: Ave Te Ariki! He toki ki roto taku mahuna!
Marathi: Aray Devaa! Majhyaa dokyaat kurhaad aahay.
Middle Egyptian: in Amun! iw minb m tp-i!
Norwegian: Herre Gud! Jeg har en øks i hodet!
Pig Latin: Oay ayemay odgay! airsthay anay axeay inay ayemay eadhay!
Polish: O Moj Boze! Mam siekiere w glowie!
Portuguese: Meu Deus! Tenho um machado na cabeca!
Russian: Bozhe moi! Eto topor v moyei golove!
Slovenian: Moj Bog! Sekiro imam v glavi.
Spanish:¡Dios mio! ¡Hay un hacha en mi cabeza!
Swahili: Siyo! (Huko) Shoka yangu kichwanil!
Swedish: Ah, Herregud! Jag har en yxa i huvudet!
Tagalong: Ay Dios ko! May palakol sa ulo ko!
Visigothic: Meina guth, Ikgastaldan aqizi-wunds meina haubida.
Welsh: O Dduw - mae 'na fwyell yn fy mhen i!

Stolen shamelessly from here.

Diet after-action report

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:23:48 GMT

The South Beach Diet is frustrating, strict, annoying, embarrassing in restaurants, and more than a little inconvenient in our modern sugar-soaked world -- but it works.

Weight at start of diet: 149.4 lbs
Weight on day of PFT: 138.5 lbs

Chart because I'm a geek:

The huge dip on August 1 was due to some last-minute panic dehydration techniques (I will neither confirm nor deny they involved laxatives) I feared would be necessary to get me below the target for the test that day. For some reason I had hit a plateau for the third week and was NOT continuing to lose weight as I had been. Yes, it was unpleasant. No, I don't recommend intentionally dehydrating yourself for two days and then trying to run three miles. Bad idea. Just trust me on this one.

But, it's over. I made weight, I scored 262 out of 300 on the PFT, and gods willing I will not have to do this sort of thing again for at least a year.

Something I really loved about the diet: the vegetable induction. Since all I could eat was veggies and lean meat and dairy, I really had to force myself to overcome my perception of the inconvenience of washing and chopping and preparing several different fresh vegetable choices at every meal. We all know we're supposed to eat lots of veggies, but it's such a pain, right? Well, now I know it can be done and it's not as inconvenient as I thought. I hope I retain those habits because it is NICE to have good salads and fresh steamed broccoli and spinach and edamame and tomatoes every meal. Mmm, veggies.

Things I really missed on the diet: FRUIT (I seriously ate three plates of fruit salad on Sunday). Whole-wheat toast. Chips to go with salsa. Cookies. Starbucks.

Things I surprisingly didn't miss: sugary soft drinks or fruit juice (although I think I just replaced that addiction with one to Splenda or stevia, so it's not really much of a win). Pasta. Bread (except for some restaurant encounters and various toasty things I like to eat).

I think I will probably retain a goodly number of habits from this experience. I mentioned the vegetables above. Honestly, I never did much like pasta anyway, but it's so ever-present -- now I have an excuse to turn it down when offered without feeling weird. I really did think I would go into raptures over sweets once they weren't off limits anymore, but to my great surprise, my body reacted somewhat unhappily when I tried to return to my normal pattern of random grazing on cookies and candy. It still tastes good. After a bunch of marshmallows or one gooey cookie, though, I discovered I didn't want any more because it made me feel crappy. This probably means smaller quantities of sweets in my future (not a bad thing), but I think it also means they'll consistently be of the highest quality, because I'm not going to ingest the poison that is refined sugar unless it's TOTALLY worth it. I imagine that financially it will turn out to be a wash :)

So, I'm back to (mostly) normal, with hopefully some healthier habits that will continue into the future. I have no intention of weighing myself for at least two weeks; we'll have to see what happens then.

Off to dinner! And fruit for dessert...

In a perfect world...

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:06:00 GMT

This made me laugh so hard today I couldn't help but share it.

"Heaven is the place where the lovers are Italian, the police are English, the mechanics are German, the cooks are French and the place is run by the Swiss.

Hell is where the lovers are Swiss, the cooks are English, the mechanics are French, the police are German and the place is run by the Italians."

Read the full blog entry here

Me? I want to go wherever the Jamaicans mix the drinks...

The South Beach Diet

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:02:00 GMT

When did I get so overweight and out of shape?

Look. I'm not fat. I'm (pretty) active, I eat (fairly) well, I take my health (reasonably) seriously. For my entire Marine Corps career, I have flirted with the upper edge of the weight limit for my height because I've been gifted with excessive "stout as a little French horse" short and stocky genes from my hobbit family. I've always been close enough to my max weight that, until now, I've managed to avoid official notice of my heaviness through a combination of high rank, clever misdirection, and a winning personality.

No longer.

I went to Camp Pendleton last weekend because I was threatened with something unmentionably dire if I skipped another drill. It was bad enough that I had to miss Drafn's 30th Anniversary. It got worse when the leadership of my unit informed me Sunday afternoon that my name was on the list of Marines tapped to participate in the unit's inspection next drill -- including a uniform inspection and a PFT (with its associated official weigh-in). It became unimaginably awful when, in answer to my half-teasing question about why they seemed to pick all the female officers for the inspection, I was told "We think you guys are the most squared-away and will make us look good."

Cue sinking stomach. It's not like I can go out and SAY I'm ten pounds overweight, will look far too bootylicious in my tight Charlies for polite company, and am generally a lousy choice to represent the unit physically -- officers are expected to maintain themselves within standards at all times. Two or three pounds I could get someone who knows me to overlook; ten pounds over the limit at an official inspection conducted by inspectors from New Orleans would be a significant embarrassment. Sigh. Note to everybody in all aspects of my life who has been deceived by good presentation into thinking I'm so fit/smart/capable/clever/awesome/the coolest thing since sliced bread: I AM NOT THE PERSON YOU THINK I AM.

So, I have to lose ten pounds by August 1st, and I need to do it without losing too much in the way of strength or aerobic capacity. I don't have to ace the PFT (I never do because I suck at running), but I have to run at least a first class test to avoid embarrassment.

My sister wonderwendy1 tells me her husband's doctor put him on the South Beach Diet. Last I heard he was having good success. So on Sunday night when I started doing the math and realized I need to lose more than three pounds a week for the next three weeks, I came to the conclusion that my standard "eat less and exercise more" plan was not going to work in time. I figured hey, if a real-live doctor without a book deal incentive is recommending that South Beach thing, maybe I should check it out.

Like most modern faddish diets, it has three phases. The first phase lasts two weeks and you can have all the green veggies and lean protein you want, but not the slimmest bite of fruit, high GI-veggies, or refined carbohydrates. OK, fine. I get the no sugar, no white flour, no white rice or carrots or potatoes -- we all know those things are bad for you. But no multi-grain toast for breakfast? No organic blueberry bran flake cereal? No FRUIT?? No way.

What's that? Most people lose 8-13 pounds in the first phase?

Oh, all right. It's two weeks. I can go without fruit for two weeks. Maybe...

I am now three days into the thing. I feel hungry but I honestly think part of that is psychological, because I would shudder to actually *count* the calories I'm eating -- eggs for breakfast every day, cheese as snacks, peanut butter on celery, sliced top sirloin on huge salads, ricotta cheese mixed with unsweetened chocolate for dessert -- I'm certainly going to give a boost to the egg and dairy industry for the next two weeks!

Cravings for sweet stuff are so far pretty easily handled; it's only 14 days, I know that an entire bag of marshmallows is probably not a good nutritive choice, and I can see the benefit in cutting way back on my addiction to processed sugar. Besides, I have Splenda and PureVia packets and I'm not afraid to use them. But you know what's funny? I want a piece of healthy multigrain toast something awful.

So, if you run into a grumpy Amber/Disa in the next few weeks, this is why (well, there is all the damned house stress too, and uncertainty about what I'm going to be doing this fall and/or next spring, and, well, all right, there's a lot of crap right now, but dieting is NOT helping). Hopefully I'll shed what I need to shed, run what I need to run, and can return to my normal level of grumpiness on August 3rd.

Yosemite

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:02:30 GMT

Every time I visit Yosemite National Park I swear I will never come home.

Several weeks ago, some dear friends and I spent a week in the park. They rented a cabin. I provided the services of nag, sometime guide, and full-time annoyingly enthusiastic Yosemite cheerleader. It was a wonderful time.

Selected photographic memories:

The cabin had a hot tub. Any day that involves twins, matching bathing suits, and some really good Jamaica rum is a good day. All that and the Sierras too? It doesn't get any better!

We climbed Sentinel Dome...

...chased rainbows on the Mist Trail...

...and took two days to go rafting down the Tuolomne.

My Harpsicle survived the harrowing trip through the Class IV rapids without a scratch and provided a nice diversion at our riverside campsite.

Back in Yosemite valley the next day, we hiked the talus and broken asphalt of Old Big Oak Flat road...

...played in the creek below Bridal Veil Falls in the rain...

...and generally felt stunned and overawed by the concentrated beauty and grandeur that is Yosemite.

Yosemite is the kind of place that, until you've been you won't believe, and after you've been you can't forget. I really am pretty content with basic things: blue sky, green trees, white rocks (well, no, it doesn't take much to make me happy, why do you ask?). Before this trip I spent a weekend in San Francisco, meeting new friends and discovering the riverine fun that is whitewater kayaking. Since this trip I have been thinking longingly of the next time I get to be on the river, in the mountains, outside where green things live and breezes blow and I can feel like a real person living on a real planet...sigh.

Ah well. As I plod along in my methodical and grueling search for a decent piece of real estate in the maritime desert that is San Diego, I can think of the cool mountains and smile, and -- thanks to our National Park system -- I can know with reasonable certainty that the mountains will still be there when I go back.

Lift thine eyes, oh lift thine eyes
To the mountains
Whence cometh, whence cometh, whence cometh help.
Thy help cometh, cometh from the Lord
From the Lord the maker of heaven and earth
He hath said thy foot shall not be moved
Thy keeper will never slumber
Never, will never slumber, slumber
Lift thine eyes oh lift thine eyes
To the mountains
Whence cometh, whence cometh, whence cometh help
Whence cometh, whence cometh, whence cometh help

My novel doesn't suck

Sun, 24 May 2009 03:33:34 GMT

I hate not writing.

Hate it hate it hate it.

I've been so distracted over the last few weeks that a whole month slipped by when I wasn't looking. When I opened Enis's story today I was disheartened to see that I last added to it on 21 April (sigh).

But I had time today. So, I spent three and a half hours re-reading it, all 130,000 words plus, with probably a third of the story still left to go.

It's good. The story is compelling, the characters are vivid, I had to make myself stop and go to the bathroom. It's rough, of course, and needs much polishing and de-purplification, but still -- I got drawn into the story, so much so that I was pleasantly surprised by the latest plot twist, even though I wrote the damned thing (a month ago). I feel much better about myself.

Dammit, I'm going to write tomorrow. I want to know how it turns out. The only way to find out is to sit down and write it!

Wish me luck...

My favorite Star Trek movie review so far

Wed, 13 May 2009 00:51:29 GMT

Via Wired:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/star-trek-a-military-analysis/

Full of spoilers, but if you've seen the movie, read it. I fell off my chair at "missile defense still doesn't work."

Bonus entertainment in the comments from people who clearly didn't get the memo about snarky sarcasm and why it's funny. Enjoy!

Geeking out, Jamaica style

Mon, 11 May 2009 00:39:14 GMT

So I was reading all the reviews of the new Star Trek movie this weekend, and feeling really sorry for myself because I was stuck on deployment and wouldn't get to see it until it hit DVD-land, when I might or might not get to it (I have yet to see *any* of the X-Men franchise for similar reasons, and now I'm so far behind it's hopeless) and I was ready to begin exerting massive self-control to stop myself from reading any spoilers until I got back.

Then it occurred to me. I'm not in darkest Africa. I'm not living in a tent in some godforsaken sandblasted outpost of our undeclared American empire. I'm in Jamaica, for crying out loud, in the largest English-speaking city south of Miami, fully outfitted with all the benefits of modern Western civilization, including traffic, drive-through restaurants, and multiplex cinemas.

Duh.

I sent the new crew of Marines off on their "get lost in Kingston" mission, fabricated an alibi that involved a trip to the laundromat, and snuck out to the mall by myself in an old-school, over-the-wall, breaking-liberty-rules episode of playing hooky. I went to the movies!

The theatre (nod to Jamaica's British heritage) was an odd mix of charming nostalgia and modern inconveniences. Just after the preachy advertisement imploring everyone to turn off their cell phones, they played cheesy circus-hall organ music that wouldn't have been out of place before a Charlie Chaplin flick. I found the requirement to stand during the national anthem, accompanied by a patriotic, emotional, green-yellow-and-black flag-waving film montage, almost delightful. I found the fifteen-minute intermission, inconveniently located at an extremely critical break in the action, infuriating. It was a lot like going to the New Angola Theater when I was a little kid, complete with red stage curtains and small crowds.

The crowd was an odd mix of Chinese-heritage Jamaicans, white expatriates, and older African-looking folks. Here's an amazing one for my friends in southern California: opening weekend of the Star Trek film and not only was the room not full, I got up to go to the bathroom during the intermission and didn't have to wait at all. Weird.

The movie? Oh, my.

It's always been about the characters for me, and Star Trek is no different. I gobbled up the non-canonical novels like candy as a teenager and loved the ideas of Starfleet, the strength inherent in the characters, the way their storylines could draw me into participation mystique that made me feel better about myself when I was done. I honestly didn't much like the poorly-acted TV shows, but damn those were fine characters.

I felt like I was getting reacquainted with old friends this afternoon. Kirk's still an asshole, McCoy is still hilariously grumpy and Sulu still wields a mean blade. Spock's outsider status is still the beating heart of the story. Uhura got more screen time than she used to but is still mostly adolescent eye-candy, which I found annoying because her character has such potential -- but at least in this reality she picked the right officer to kiss, so I'll allow it. The young Scotty can smile and talk to me all day long (mmm).

The movie was fast, breathtakingly so in some places, and we couldn't seem to get five minutes without some sort of overacted fistfight, but I found myself catching my breath and laughing out loud and getting caught up in the story and grinning like a fool when it was over. Several times I *really* wished I was back with my friends so I could squeal, laugh, bounce, get excited -- but no, I was watching it with a bunch of exotic strangers who really would have looked askance at the crazy white woman doing a little dance when an ancient-looking Leonard Nimoy came out of that ice cave.

My one rant for this reboot: I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY KILLED OFF AMANDA. I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY DESTROYED VULCAN. Spock a member of an endangered species? Seriously? HOW COULD THEY???? Dammit dammit it's their story they can do what they want and I'll pay them for the privilege but DAMN already. What a loss to the entire Federation civilization -- and damn the testosterone-poisoned Gen X writers who couldn't even give it the gravity it deserves. Grrr. Why not destroy Earth while they're at it?

Spock and Uhura? That I believe.

If you haven't seen it, GO SEE IT. It's good. Set aside your preconceptions and enjoy the story and the characters on their own merits, and go along on a fun ride that will leave you impatiently waiting for the next one.

Sint Maarten

Mon, 04 May 2009 02:34:12 GMT

Oh, I had a nice time on leave!

I swapped in some timeshare points for six days in a resort on the Dutch side of St-Martin/St. Maarten. Gina and Mik came down from Colorado (airline pilots will show up if you invite them, no matter how obscure the location) and we bummed around, drank rum, had adventures, and generally enjoyed a nice Eastern Caribbean vacation.

My timeshare deal is the best EVER because it comes complete with cooks. They bought, scaled, gutted, filleted, and cooked a whole red snapper with vegetables (and in the process we all learned proper respect for the Scotch Bonnet peppers in jerk seasoning). I had an honest-to-god Cheeseburger in Paradise at the Barefoot Restaurant one afternoon. And the 12-year-old rum and the Red Stripe and the Mackeson and the Sangster's and the Jamaica mudslides and the Guavaberry coladas...oh my goodness I need to hit the gym tomorrow...

On our big adventure day, we rented a car and drove to the French side of the island. We stopped for fresh baguettes and a picnic lunch on the seawall next to the charming bakery and market that was so French we had to take pictures of sailboats to prove we weren't in Paris:

Then we drove up to Pic Paradis for the main event of the day: the Fly Zone Extreme at Loterie Farm. Ziplining through the jungle. Fun! Gina says the tiny flesh-colored speck you can't see in this picture is me:

As you can tell, I really enjoyed the ride:

On another day, we lazed about at the resort for a while and then made footprints in the sand as we walked the ten minutes on the beach into town to watch the Carnival parade. It must be my year for Caribbean carnivals because I've now seen two. The people in Sint Maarten wore a lot more in the way of clothing than the revelers in Jamaica, though:

Unfortunately, it came to an end, as all good things do. I flew back to Jamaica on Saturday and tried to dig out from underneath my huge pile of ignored email. Lucky for me today was scheduled for this team's obligatory visit to Ocho Rios! So, yeah, the day after I get back from leave, I climbed Dunn's River Falls with yet another group of Marines, went shopping, had dinner at Margaritaville, and generally enjoyed myself:

I have to admit it. Life doesn't suck.

Tomorrow it starts to suck again...but in less than thirty days I'll be back in Southern California. I'm sure I'll miss Jamaica -- exotic, fun, stressful, hot Caribbean Jamaica -- when I leave. Right now, though, I'm good -- I've seen it -- been there, done that, bought WAY too many T-shirts -- I'm ready to go home. Ah, well. Soon come.

Hope all is well with everyone!

Another two weeks down!

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 21:56:49 GMT

What a two weeks it has been. Since I last posted, I have:

- Participated in a community relations project to paint a school (for some reason, all of these COMRELs seem to involve carrying dirt and rocks up a hill)

- Visited Dunn's River Falls with another rotation of Marines

- Swam with dolphins at Dolphin Cove

- Watched the carnival parade in Kingston (which for some reason happens the week AFTER Easter in Jamaica)

- Visited a medical fair in the pouring rain up in a rural town near Montego Bay

- Handed out US Army South paraphernalia at the medical fair

- Returned from Montego Bay via Negril so we could go to Rick's Cafe and jump off the cliff

On Saturday we did the standard Marine swap and there is once again a brand new set of CA Marines here in Jamaica. They went out and got lost in Kingston today on the obligatory "drive around on Sunday when there's no traffic in order to figure out this driving on the left thing" mission. When they get back I'm going to do a turnover with the team leader, and then tomorrow I'm leaving the island (for another island) on a sanity-saving six-day trip away from the DC Army National Guard.

I know in the pictures it probably looks like I've been on a long vacation here in Jamaica, but it's been far more slogging than partying -- I just don't take pictures of staff meetings or long days on the phone or long miserable drives in the rain. I need a vacation!

Hello to everyone. I miss you!

Yikes!

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:36:18 GMT

Or maybe "eep" is more appropriate :)

Weekly update -- Montego Bay edition

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 22:22:49 GMT

I get it now. I get why Jamaica is a big deal, why the Beach Boys wrote a song about it, why Jimmy Buffett opened three of his Margaritaville restaurants here, why everyone important in my life hates me right now. I didn't understand what the fuss was all about -- Kingston is a big dirty city and the whole Jamaica deal seemed really overrated.

It took drinking hummingbirds and mudslides at the swim-up bar of an all-inclusive resort, but I get it :)

Here's the view from my window:

Here's the sunset from the same window:

If my whole three months here were going to be like last week, I'd never come home! Admittedly, I have to acknowledge that the hotel was nowhere near as nice as the Hilton, but the location more than made up for it. Not to mention the plentiful if unremarkable food and drinks that were included in the lodging fee...

The story: last week we made the long, scary drive to Montego Bay so we could spend a few days in the three towns where the Air Force is going to do some medical fairs beginning next week. (In passing, I would like to note that naturally it was the Air Force that landed the one mission out of six that's in the gorgeous resort area instead of the inner city or the goat-infested rural mountains. Typical.) We played Psy-Ops and handed out flyers, put up posters, visited churches, and generally did our level best to get the word out about the free medical care being provided by the US military. I won't get into ranting about the general incompetence and lack of planning on the part of this unit, really, I won't. I won't. Breathe. Relax. Om mani padme RUM

"Why is the rum gone?" -- Captain Jack Sparrow

It was a pleasant, fruitful trip, but now I'm back in Kingston, back to reality, feeling homesick on Easter Sunday and missing my family and friends. I have a new set of Marines. Only two got off the airplane last night, instead of the normal four, and nobody thought it necessary to call and let me know it was only going to be two, so I had to do some fast talking back at the hotel when I cancelled the reservations. Sigh. One more thing I need to sort out next week once everyone at Camp Pendleton comes back from the holiday. Seriously. Would it have been *so* hard to call me?

Today those two Marines and I went to Devon House for Easter Brunch and enjoyed traditional Jamaican food amidst the dark wooden walls of the old carriage house in the company of well-dressed matrons in white dresses and hats. A scoop of ice cream topped off a pleasant meal and the two new guys can't believe we're getting paid to do this. Sadly, although tomorrow is a national holiday in Jamaica, we all have to get back to a real work schedule again, including the eye-poking staff meeting to look forward to tomorrow evening. Ah well.

I should hit my halfway point this week sometime. As lovely a time I had last week, as exotic and interesting and adventurous this trip is proving to be, right now I just want to be done. Wah. Poor me. Here I am, stuck in Jamaica... [ironic grin] I know, I know, I'm getting no sympathy. And you're right, I am being silly. It's not so bad.

Happy Easter, everyone, spring greetings and happy thoughts to all and sundry! May everyone be blessed.

I've been here five weeks? Really?

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 02:36:29 GMT

That's what the calendar says, five weeks. It has been three weeks since I last posted an update. Funny, I just turned around twice... One rotation of Marines has come and gone and we are halfway through the second rotation. Time flies in the Caribbean, I guess. Sigh. I really did mean to update this journal more often, honest I did. But since I've fallen so far behind, everyone is going to have to make do with a quick re-cap and a few selected pictures, accompanied by a solemn promise that, should you ask, I will bore you to tears with a zillion photos the next time I see you.

As driving gets easier I have to do it more, which is a) good, because I can see more cool things and b) bad, because driving long distances in this country is going to shave years off my life. Note the location of the steering wheel:

My list of "touristy" things has expanded as I've kept my vow to do one thing a week. Some weeks I get two or three, depending on mission demands and what the Marines want to do.

Week 1 was Port Royal (see previous post)

Week 2 was the Hope Gardens. Considering the shared British heritage, I expected something as perfectly manicured and lovingly maintained as the botanic gardens in Singapore I had loved so much. Such was emphatically NOT the case. It took me a while to quit wishing this place was something it wasn't, but once I decided to enjoy it for what it was I had a nice time.

Week 3 was fish and festival and a massage at Hellshire Beach with the Marines, and Sunday brunch at Devon House. I ate myself full to bursting on fish and festival, the massage was cheap and relaxing. Brunch was all right but the Devon House ice cream was WONDERFUL.

Week 4 was Dunn's River Falls and Dolphin Cove with the first rotation of Marines. Bog standard tourist crap but AWESOME nonetheless. We made the obligatory pilgrimage to Margaritaville on the way home.

This week, just today, was the Appleton Estate Rum Tour and a boat ride on the crocodile-infested Black River with the second rotation of Marines. They came back with multiple bottles of 12-year-old rum and Sangster's Rum Cream; I contented myself with the insanely good spiced rum punch and other samples they forced into us in order to make us buy rum. How many "complimentary" drinks one can properly ingest before 11 am I'm not quite sure...but let's just say it was a good thing I wasn't driving.

The crocs are friendly "Jamaica no problem mon" creatures who posed for cameras and ate raw chicken thrown to them by the boat captain. The mangroves were spindly, the river was calm, I enjoyed the boat ride tremendously.

This group is also going to do the Dunn's River Falls/Dolphin Cove thing tomorrow before we head up to Montego Bay on Monday for a long week of real work.

Little has changed with the work situation; the staff is still frustrating, the meetings are still eye-poking marathons of mediocrity, and I still have received very little in the way of direction. After being here a while, I have decided I have two main goals: to make sure all the HCA missions happen despite the serious lack of planning on the part of the Army, and to make sure that all the Marines who rotate through on their two-week training get good CA experience and have a good time in Jamaica. Anything more is likely to be a case of the juice not being worth the squeeze, I think.

I miss my friends. I miss good roads and being able to write every day. I'm starting to realize that three months is a long time to stare at the same four hotel walls every night. But honestly, I can't bring myself to do too much complaining -- it's Jamaica, after all, and once I got out of Kingston I began to understand why so many people love this island. Not a bad deal by any stretch! Now if I can just get to Montego Bay next week without killing anyone...

Visit to Port Royal

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:15:51 GMT

Last Sunday I took a trip out to the once-bustling-city-turned-tiny-fishing-village of Port Royal. Click the link for the historical details; I'm too lazy to repeat them here. Sadly, none of the pirate-themed shops were open (pout) and so the town had a sleepy, almost ghost-town feel.

On the ocean side of the road to Port Royal, which runs along a disquietingly narrow strip of sand washed by waves on both sides, there is an old shipwreck. There were no signs or interpretive trails like you would find in the US, and so I know no details whatsoever -- I had to park on the side of the road and climb over the dunes and just let the rusting hulk being lashed by wind and bashed by water speak for itself.

Before you get all the way to Port Royal, there is an old British Naval cemetery on the harbor side of the road. There was a sign, here, so I knew it was really the naval cemetery, but the rusting gate was falling down and waist-high grasses blew between the crosses.

In Port Royal proper, the most interesting place to see is Fort Charles. I climbed to the top of the guard tower and looked out over the almost-empty grounds. The couple you see in the picture were the only other visitors I saw all day. The sun was brutal, white-hot tropical light that left me pretty much blind without sunglasses and only partially-sighted with them, but it was a gorgeous day nonetheless.

From the tower I could also see the nearest of the Port Royal Cays, Gun Cay (closer) and Rackham's Cay, named after the notorious pirate Calico Jack.

Admiral Lord Nelson was stationed at Port Royal as a Lieutenant, a fact that seems to make the Jamaica National Heritage Trust rather proud:

I found this gate far more interesting than is probably warranted. It just seems to capture so perfectly the quiet oddness of Fort Charles.

Behind Fort Charles is a building that, while it did not slide into the sea like most of the city in the earthquake of 1692, didn't quite survive unscathed, either. It's called the Giddy House because people who walk on its floor feel a disorienting sense of vertigo. The name is well-earned! The builder must have taken great pains in his work for such a thing to have remained fully intact even as the ground beneath it gave way. The floor is smooth and uncracked and solid -- it just tilts.

Once I'd seen what there was to see at Fort Charles, I went to Victoria's Seafood for lunch, which had been recommended by several people. It's not even a hole-in-the-wall -- there weren't any walls! Several tents and plastic tables were set up right up against the road, and a woman dumped whole fish by the dozen into hot oil being heated by a fire in a metal drum that sat just on the other side of the road. I had the "spicy shrimp," which turned out to be shrimp cooked with onions and Scotch Bonnet peppers. Once I realized what the peppers were I was a little afraid to try it, but they had been cooked down enough that the dish was tasty, not merely torture. As I watched the woman fry the fish, though, I decided that's what I should have ordered.

It's already 1 pm on Sunday, so I don't know if I'll get a tourist trip in this week or not; I might just walk over to Emancipation Park and take pictures and call it done. There's a lot of work coming up this week, so I don't feel too bad about being lazy today.

Eleven weeks to go :)

First two Caribbean weeks

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 17:40:18 GMT

Well, I arrived in Jamaica two weeks ago today. Kind of hard to believe, actually, that it has been so long, but I'm in a sort of timeless hotel world so my sense of duration has probably been thrown off a little.

I've spent nearly all my time in and around Kingston, although I did make one long trip out to Morant Bay. Everyone back home is giving me the evil eyeball about hardship duty in Paradise -- but I have decided there are three Jamaicas:

- The tourist paradise of pristine Caribbean beaches and all-inclusive resorts and charming touts selling overpriced gewgaws (north coast)
- The bustling city of Kingston, which is big and built up and modern in a cramped, dirty sort of way, as if someone dropped East LA into coastal Africa (southeast coast)
- The rural mountain communities where goats graze on the narrow roadside and people never travel more than a few miles from where they were born (everywhere else)

Guess which Jamaica I'm *not* working in :)

I put together a map of our project sites using Google Maps because the unit I'm supporting down here can't even spell GIS; when I asked about what they were using for their planning I got the hundred-yard-stare. All the detailed information about the project sites, dates, scopes, etc. has come to me either from the Jamaican Defense Forces or the Military Liaison Office at the Embassy. I know the DC Army National Guard guys are trying, and they all seem to be nice guys, but they definitely appear to be, um, I'll just say "inexperienced at operating in a joint environment" and leave it at that. I'm grateful that this is not a terribly complex operation.

http://tiny.cc/7Uj3J (redirects to maps.google.com)

In the interest of maintaining some sort of military security I didn't post the dates of each project on the map, but considering that much of my time over the next several weeks is going to be spent trying to let everyone on the island know the exact dates and locations, such caution is probably unnecessary. I've just never had to resort to Google Maps for operational planning before. (boggle)

My initial experience of Kingston has been one of narrowness: everything is narrow. The roads are narrow, the parking spaces are narrow, the roads are narrow, the aisles between shelves in stores are narrow, did I mention the roads are narrow? Through sheer luck I've managed to drive this whole time with only some curb climbing on the left side a time or two. I just go slow and try and stay out of the way of the crazy people on motorcycles performing death-defying feats of spectacular danger. I'm in no hurry. I'll get there. Go ahead, mon, go on in.

The staff at the Hilton is very, very good at names. Everyone greets me by name -- the maids who come in to make my bed, the attendant in the breakfast room, the bellhop who helped me get my bags upstairs, even the person who checked me in the first day remembers me and greets me. Rare is the walk through the lobby when someone doesn't say "Good day, Ms. Lehning." I don't know if this is because I'm conspicuous -- I would say half the clientele of the hotel is European businessmen and the other half is Caribbean businessmen -- or if they are simply trained to impress people by remembering names. It's kind of daunting, because -- although I try -- I often have to resort to a cheery, familiar "Good morning, how are you doing?" because I only spoke to the person once in passing and have no way of even knowing, much less remembering, their name.

The security guards at the parking lots (every parking lot in Jamaica seems to have a security guard, some more than one) are all very friendly. Once, after I parallel parked my van (on the wrong side, mind you) I came out to see a bunch of guards and tour drivers grinning at me. "Very good, very good." I smiled back, not sure what they were talking about. "He like de way you drive," another said. "I tell dem, British always drive good, Americans no." I didn't have the heart to tell him I was an American -- I just thanked them and headed on in. Another time (same parking lot, different set of guards), one of them asked "Excuse me, miss, are you German?" I guess I just don't look American. When I wear my uniform, people call me Miss Souljah (as in "Ey, Miss Souljah, how is your day today?").

We're not working on Sundays, so I'm going to try and do something touristy every week. Of course, pretty much everything is closed on Sundays, so that's kind of a bum deal, but I'll have to make do. Last Sunday I went out to Port Royal, once the pirate capital of the Caribbean and the "wickedest city on earth" but now a sleepy fishing village with a crumbling old fort. I'll do a separate post on that trip including pictures (now that the friend who let me stick my laptop webserver under his desk back in California has finally sorted out all the port forwarding issues with his ISP, hooray).

Last week, while I was down at the hotel bar for a "manager's cocktail" thing they were having (free food: good) I was chatting with a nice Irish fellow. The battalion commander and one of the senior NCOs from the DCARNG came over (they are all staying at another hotel -- that's a story for another time) and I greeted them and introduced them by rank and name to my acquaintance. We chatted for a while and then they wandered off to find a drink, and the Irish guy asked me if they were Jamaican military? No, I said, they're US military, and he blinked a couple of times. He didn't say anything, but I'm thinking he didn't expect American military personnel to be black :) Considering it turned out that his name was Paddy, from Dublin, I laughed later about the whole idea of stereotypes.

So, I'm getting settled in, and there's plenty of work. I'll be here until the end of May. I'm certainly broadening my horizons -- I've never even visited the Caribbean before, so this is kind of a cultural overload for me, but I'm enjoying it. There's always something new to learn!

Jamaica!

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 21:36:57 GMT

I'm here! And I'm recovered enough from the stress of packing and the long day of travel to pay my $7 and get on the internet for today (free hotel internet is evidently not a Jamaican thing), so here's my first initial impressions.

It's the Caribbean. It's hot. I can see the misty Blue Mountains of Jamaican coffee fame from my hotel window. The sun outside is so strong it feels like a slap on my face.

They drive on the left. Left. Left left left left left not that far left oops there's the curb left left left left oh gods where did that car come from look out! Whew. Left left left left left...

When I got in last night, the person who met me (and a bunch of SeaBees who were on the same plane) was willing to take his life in his hands and ride back to the hotel with me. I sat on the wrong side of the car because that's where the steering wheel was. The whole trip I stuck very, very tightly to the bumper of the van carrying the SeaBees and somehow, sleep-deprived, jet-lagged, hungry and exhausted, I managed to get the small rental van back to the hotel without killing anyone and only climbing the left curb three times.

Since I had nothing to do today but catch up on sleep and get myself sorted out, I spent some time this afternoon in the car by myself, getting lost in Kingston and learning to drive. I can see I'm going to have to tie something bright and obnoxious to the left side of the steering wheel as a mnemonic. It takes a LOT of concentration but I think I'll be all right -- I only hit the curb once the whole afternoon, I didn't hit any other cars, I didn't once choose the wrong lane or turn onto the wrong side of a median, I managed to navigate both multi-lane roads and twisty alleys full of Jamaicans staring at the white girl in the fancy van (yes, I was VERY lost), and despite the fact that road signage seems to run at about 15% I managed to get myself un-lost after only three hours. I think I'll do better when the stores open tomorrow and I can actually buy a map :)

It's an unusual feeling for me, to be so clearly in the ethnic minority in a modern, developed, European-feeling city. Humans are multivariate and multi-hued creatures -- a fact that is far more evident in a place like Jamaica than even in cosmopolitan California. Most Jamaicans seem to have African heritage. As I sat in the airport waiting area, though, there was enough variation on the basic African theme to captivate the inveterate people-watcher in me for over an hour. There was the girl with brown skin, Asian eyes, and the kanji for "beauty" hanging around her neck. There was the tall, willowy black woman with flawless skin and even more flawless French who was looking forward to seeing her Jamaican husband after visiting her family in France -- she spoke English with mixed Caribbean and French accents in a way that tickled all of my linguistic neurons. There was the stern-looking older woman with her hair pressed against her head in flattened curls. There were two light-brown-skinned teenagers speaking Jamaican patois so thick I couldn't follow it. There was the old black man with a grey goatee napping under his leather hat. There was the light-skinned black couple dressed like islanders speaking, wait, isn't that, yes, it was Arabic. There was a very dark-skinned mother trying to corral her bouncy little girl with cornrows and a bright yellow dress -- oh, look, I thought, how sweet, they're going home -- then the woman opened her mouth and spoke with a thick New York accent and I realized they were as American as I was. The fact that I had thought otherwise spoke volumes about how skin color really does affect my perceptions -- and how those perceptions are usually wrong. Interestingly enough, most of the American military folks I have met so far, including my roommate, the XO and CO of the unit running the show, and most of the enlisted folks except for those SeaBees, are all also black. This is going to be good for me.

Here's to grand adventures and expanded horizons!

Estrella War

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:37:49 GMT

I'm home again from Estrella War in Florence, AZ. I couldn't attend last year, but the stories were horrendous, and I was warned about how it was going to be wet and rainy and windy and the site was going to be a sticky mudhole. It actually turned out to be absolutely gorgeous!

I arrived Wednesday evening. Thursday morning our warband got to the field just a little late, so we were still at marshal's point getting inspected when the first battle started. Looking out at the field, I saw Caid's side had roughly thirty people and Atenveldt and Outlands had fielded over two hundred, so I thought we might make the fight if they took some time to even out the sides. Then, to our utter surprise, the marshals called "Lay on!" Of course it was over in just a few minutes. We lined up with the pitifully small Caidan army afterwards and prepared for our own glorious defeat, but by then Outlands had evidently decided that they didn't drive eighteen hours to fight thirty guys, and they came over to our side.

That was the story for the rest of the war -- every morning, we would line up for a grossly uneven battle, get steamrolled, and then (once Atenveldt had proved they could win a war point when they outnumbered their opponents four-to-one) we'd be grudgingly granted another few units. Although it's demoralizing to lose almost every battle, I have to admit it's better fighting outnumbered -- every one of us could go down swinging, while a lot of their guys wouldn't even make it into the fight before the battle was over. We did manage to win one or two, though, and it was a target-rich environment all weekend :)

In Sunday's resurrection battle I had a fun single combat with another glaiveman (I was pretty much able to hit him at will, and for once I felt like I didn't totally suck), and I got to play with a spear several times throughout the weekend. It was a good, solid, bone-crunching fighting war, in which I fought all day, every day -- I hauled my big harp and all my music toys all the way out there and didn't pull them out once. We did have a spectacularly good bard, one Michael Kelly from An Tir, visit the Drafn fire on Thursday night. Later Dagmar went over to his camp to capture the lyrics and tune to an awesome song he sung for us ("Undefeated," written by THL Lucia Elena Braganza of the Midrealm). I managed to learn it well enough to sing it badly for Dun Tyr on Sunday night. Yay for a new song!

Congratulations to the Honorable Lady Rochl bas Gershom Sternenkiker (frausensei), who was inducted into the Order of the Lux Caidis on Sunday. I had my spear yanked from me while I was standing guard at court, and they told me the Queen said I had to go find Rochl RIGHT NOW. I went running back to Drafn camp, but of course she was off dancing, so we had to resort to some very non-period communications channels to track her down. Back at court they had shifted the award schedule around, and Duke Edric (playing herald) only had to vamp a little until she showed up. Hooray for another steaming pile!

Congratulations to the Honorable Lady Kara the Twin of Kelton, who won Drafn's Spear of Tenar for being the most dedicated and enthusiastic fighter on the field. Even if she did shoot me on Sunday, over and over and over...

It was a long drive and a long war, but I'm glad I went. Unfortunately I'm back now, to my half-packed apartment and the craziness of my mundane life, but for a few days I could just hang with my friends and hit people with sticks and participate in the magical shared dream that is the SCA.

Sigh. Back to reality.

Writer's conference recap

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 06:47:32 GMT

This past weekend, I attended the SDSU Writer's Conference down in San Diego. I have to say, at the end of the day it was a good use of time and money, and I'm glad I went -- but I significantly underestimated the toll it would take on my mental health!

Friday night was check-in, and the opportunity to sign up for (and pay for) additional consultation appointments with industry professionals (mostly agents and editors). I had already paid for two appointments, one with an agent and one with an editor. I spent a lot of time looking at the list and wondering if I should sign up for another one, but there was such a dearth of agents who represent my genre that I decided to save my money.

After I got checked in, I still had an hour or two to kill before the "mixer" that evening so I walked up to Quizno's and Starbucks for dinner and internet. While I was sitting in Starbucks dreading the experience of an enormous room of unknown people, in the door walked Scott Farrell (known as Duke Guillaume to his SCA friends). It turned out, much to my surprise, that not only had he been a speaker at this conference for many years, he was working on a young adult Arthurian novel (based on an actual 12th century legend, which shouldn't surprise anyone one who knows him). We talked over coffee in Starbucks until we could no longer justify putting off the eye-poking experience of "mixing" and headed back over to the hotel.

Much cheered by the presence of someone I actually knew and liked, the experience wasn't nearly as bad as my crippling introversion led me to expect, but it didn't rise to the level of, say, cleaning a toilet with a toothbrush. I'm not sure I accomplished anything that evening, but I did get a chance to observe the editor I was to meet with the next day as he handled (with admirable patience, I thought) the, um, odd collection of personalities vying for his attention.

Saturday morning came awfully damned early. As I hauled myself out of bed in time to make the long drive from Oceanside, I was very happy that Guillaume had offered to let me stay at his place Saturday night. I parked at Old Town and got on the trolley at 8:10 -- plenty of time to go three stops and be at the hotel by 8:30, right? Um, not so much.  The train just SAT THERE for a good fifteen minutes. I ended up being about five minutes late for the opening keynote address. Just what I needed -- some good old-fashioned late stress to start the day right.

I know the keynote address was supposed to be inspiring.  The speaker was engaging and entertaining, and he talked about the grind of revision after revision, and described all the things he went through on the road to getting his FIRST NOVEL (!) onto the NYT bestseller list -- but honestly, I really got dispirited when he said he got his agent through a referral from a family friend, just some writer...who happened to be named James Patterson.   Sigh. Just what I needed -- one more story about how you need to have a connection to a big name in order to make it in publishing.

Then it was off to the breakout sessions. The first one I attended was "On-The-Spot Critiques for Query Letters" in which a real, live agent read and responded anonymously to query letters provided by the attendees. As she read my letter I tried to sit very still, but it seemed like there was a shaft of light gleaming down on me to reveal the person who had created such awfulness. She had some useful comments ("this sentence here doesn't do anything for you, get rid of it") and some just plain depressing ones ("even though this was way too long, I just really don't understand what your story is about -- I don't get it"). Just what I needed -- right before I headed into the one single pitch session I had scheduled with an agent.

Said pitch session went amazingly well. It was very much like speed dating -- there were a zillion tables set up in this big room, you had ten minutes, and the conference people wandered through ringing a bell when the time was up. I said hello, she said tell me about your story, I told her, she asked a couple of questions, I answered them, she said I really like the concept, go ahead and send me your first fifty pages, here's our submission guidelines, and the bell was ringing. Fastest ten minutes ever.  I walked out thinking "OMG THE AGENT SAID YES SEND ME YOUR STUFF." Great! Woohoo!

A little dazed, I dropped into the last half of a craft workshop on "Ten Ways to Enter a Story." I'm sure it was very interesting but you'll have to ask someone else -- my notes from that session consist of two lines: Where I come from is who I am. Listen to your broccoli. Gods' truth, that's what it says. I'm sure I thought those lines very insightful when I wrote them down.

Next was the "networking lunch." There were THREE TABLES for my genre. We all sort of crowded into two of them, but then the senior editor at one of the main publishing houses walked in -- and sat down by himself at the third table. One person got up immediately to join him, and then after about three minutes I did too. As we sat down next to him and fiddled with salad dressing he asked "So, what do the two smartest people here want to know about publishing?" He was just astounded that that nobody else joined us for a good twenty minutes. This was the person I was to meet with directly after lunch. Of course I said a bunch of stupid things -- I can't even talk to my friends without saying stupid things -- and I now have lots of "you're an idiot" moments to obsess over from that lunch. Sigh.

So, the meeting with the editor. This was an "advance reading," where I had sent in my first ten pages for him to read before the conference. Back in the speed-dating room, he pulled out my pages and dropped them on the table with a teasing flourish. "Dun dun DUN." I have to say he is clearly a gifted editor and had a lot of incredibly helpful comments, and my work is going to be better from having talked to him -- but yikes. Here I had just told the agent I'd send her my stuff next week, and now a big-time editor was explaining how my very premise probably needed to be significantly changed if I wanted anyone to get past the first ten pages... Yeah, just what I needed.

Now a little punch-drunk, I ducked into an agent's panel to educate myself on any pet peeves of the agent to whom I was going to send my work (once I rewrote it completely, of course). After that, I attended a session with the encouraging name of "Hush! The Character is Talking" that turned out to be a Hollywood type talking about characterization. Then I attended "Two Pages That Cannot Be Rejected," in which an agent read to us the presentation she had carefully written for the occasion. That one went much better once she ditched the pages and started talking to us. Guillaume was in there too, and we decided to stay in the same room for "Channel Surfing and Other Meditation Methods for Concentration Challenged Writers." Yes, it was a meditation class. Honest. I rather enjoyed it (since I don't think my brain could have handled anything else) but Guillaume said he had to try hard not to fall asleep.

The "wine and cheese" reception at the end of the day was a bit marred by the fact that the power in the hotel kept going off and leaving several hundred people trying to network in the dark. I stalked the only other editor who works in my genre but when I got to talk to her I didn't know much what to say -- I knew she didn't accept unagented work, so I couldn't pitch her -- I ended up just describing my project and asking if she thought there would be a market for such a thing, because another publisher had turned it down for being "not commercially viable." She was nice, explained what she thought made something "young adult," and wished me luck before moving on to one of the other ten people waiting around the table to talk to her. I thanked her and told her to have a sip of wine and a bite of food before she talked to the next person.

Guillaume appeared to be deep in conversation (with a guy who turned out to be a big-time Hollywood producer), so I cast about for someone else to talk to. At this point I was realizing that I had paid a lot of money for the opportunity to be in the same room with these people and I damned well ought to go talk to them, whether I sounded stupid or not. I consulted my list of agents and tracked another one down. I wasn't really pitching her, because the agent to whom I was going to submit was from her same agency, but I asked her for a response on my pitch itself, anything I could do to make it better. She was also very nice, and said she wished me luck and hoped I'd get good news from her colleague.

That was pretty much all the "networking" I could handle. We left soon after that (but unfortunately not before I said some more stupid things). We stopped for Chinese take-out on the way home and I had a lovely evening with Guillaume and Felinah (involving lots of talk about lots of neat stuff, and an enormous spinach salad) before I crashed in their guest room. They're wonderful, fun people and I wish I hadn't been so tired and frazzled.

Sunday morning we showed up perfectly on time, but there were some technical issues with the sound system so the morning's keynote speech started quite late. This was a terrible shame because the speaker was terrific. No high-level hookups here -- just good, solid, hard work delivered in a very entertaining style. I would much rather have listened to him than attend random workshops, but unfortunately they had to cut him way short in order to keep on schedule.

Sunday's sessions were mostly unremarkable. "Why Can't I Find an Agent" didn't tell me anything I didn't know. On a whim, and because I was too chicken-shit to go to another query critique workshop, I poked into "Magazine Writers Seeking Editors Seeking Writers" and was momentarily entranced by the prospect of actually getting paid to write. Guillaume and I went to lunch at Quizno's, and because I didn't carefully check times I ended up missing half of the presentation by the big-time editor I'd met, which was of course the only workshop I was actually interested in the whole damned weekend. Sigh. Guillaume and I attended "Writing Great Characters in the First Ten Pages," which also turned out to be a Hollywood person who actually told the room of novelists listening to him that we needed to get out more, and then we gave up on the last session and left. I complained that they should have some sort of indication on the schedule that the person giving the presentation was a Hollywood type. I'm not that interested in Hollywood.

As we were sitting and talking in the parking lot, I pointed out that we could probably find somewhere more comfortable to talk than the cab of his truck. We ended up stopping by a grocery store and then going back to his house, where Felinah made a wonderful spaghetti dinner and Guillaume and I read each other's work. We agreed to meet semi-regularly to encourage each other and critique each other, and I am thrilled about that. I am really in need of committed, honest, and skilled critiquing, but I'm really not excited about joining a critique group of people I don't know who probably don't write in my genre. Amazingly enough, here's Guillaume. This is going to be good for both of us. If nothing else was accomplished this weekend, I think I found a writing/critique partner, and that's worth way more than the price of the conference.

So, I don't feel the conference was a waste of money. But I ended up feeling like my brain had turned into pudding. I had to escape my house full of half-packed boxes, and went out to Barnes and Noble with my laptop to get some work done today. My real estate agent finally told the bank (who is already an entire WEEK late in responding to our offer) to pack sand -- so I'm not buying a house in Oceanside before I leave after all. I did get a lot of good work done today, and tomorrow I will take one more pass over my first three chapters, and then I'll print them out and send them to the agent. If you're wishing me luck, now is a good time :)

Jamaica in three weeks, for three months.

What a crazy life I lead.

Post-conference brain fry

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 04:11:41 GMT

I promise I will make a detailed post about the SDSU Writer's Conference I attended this past weekend -- but not tonight.

My brain is mush.

I ran into a good friend at the conference (who I did NOT know was a fiction writer) and he told me after his first time at this conference, he thought suicide seemed a viable response to the information overload and the way it highlights the complete impossibility of ever getting published (while at the same time proving without a doubt that it happens to hundreds of thousands of people every year).

Suicide seems a bit extreme for me. I'm thinking more along the lines of, oh, I don't know, Monster.com.

Bread

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 03:52:27 GMT

So, I've been seriously stressed out with this whole "buying a house" thing. Obsession over house-hunting has kind of taken over my life for the last week or so. In an effort to get myself off the computer and away from stressing about offers and garages and gangs and things, I thought I'd try out my new baking stone and make some bread. Behold:

Lumpy, uneven, pasty white loaves, but still recognizable as bread: I'm calling it a success for my first try. The darker color you see is butter I brushed on with my fingers in an attempt to brown it up a little. Yes, I burned my fingers (duh).

Things I wish I'd known about baking bread:

* It could take four hours to rise the first time. Seriously. FOUR HOURS. I mean, I had plenty of other things to do (like adding to Enis's story, good me) and it wasn't an issue, but really? Four hours?

* The recipe you use makes a difference. Who knew? I mean, it's bread, right? Flour, yeast, some fat and some water, knead it and bake it, people far less intellectually gifted than I have been doing this as long as humans have been grinding flour, right? Um, yeah. Not so much. The random recipe I pulled off the internet made more bread than any single human being could possibly hope to consume in a reasonable amount of time (both of those loaves are at least fourteen inches long). I suppose I could freeze it, but still -- I'll halve the recipe next time.

* It is a LOT of work to make bread by hand. Not just physical work (kneading and kneading and kneading) but psychological work (why the HELL won't it rise???). Now I understand why bread machines are so popular!

I augmented my dinner tonight with a few slices of freshly baked bread. It smelled like bread ought to smell and it tasted like bread ought to taste, so the yeast was good and the bread baked right, but there was something wrong with the texture. It was heavy and dense, like thick brown "peasant" bread (even though I made it with white flour and expected something a little, um, lighter). Either I didn't knead it enough or I didn't let it rise enough, or I added too much salt, or...or...I never knew bread was this difficult... This bread will make great toast and crostini, though, so I'm sure it will be eaten -- and next time (there WILL be a next time) I won't be quite as clueless about the whole process.

Even if the bread looks all lumpy and tastes all thick and heavy, I don't care -- for the first time this week, I feel like the day wasn't a total loss.

I has a new harp!

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 04:59:33 GMT

It's the *cutest* little thing. I was worried I wouldn't be able to fit it into my other harp bag because it has four more strings than the other one, but it fits with a great deal of room to spare.

I really couldn't afford it -- but now I can take a playable harp with me to Jamaica. This is a very good thing.

Supposedly this was a scratch-n-dent blemished instrument, but I can't find a blemish, so I guess I got a good deal. It tuned up fine and sounds terrific. Well, it's not a Lionwood or anything :) but it's orders of magnitude better than that crappy thing I had. Yay for good deals!

Working, again, sort of

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 07:01:20 GMT

I read Enis's tale today, from start to mid-story interrupted finish, and managed to write an additional 1265 words. It's hardly an outpouring of creativity and productivity, but for the first time in (mumble) weeks I managed to defeat the Resistance that prevents me so successfully from sitting down to work. Not much -- but I'll take what I can get.

Thoughts on the Inauguration

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:07:55 GMT

I suffered through laggy streaming video to watch the Inauguration this morning, and in a way it was good, because I could concentrate on what people were saying rather than watching cheesy flag-waving pictures of massive crowds and dewy-eyed dreamers.

Random reflections:

-- Not being all that interested in politics, this was the first time I've intentionally sat down to watch an Inauguration. So I was surprised to hear the Vice President take the same oath administered to commissioned officers in the armed services. Familiar words in an unfamiliar setting -- neat.

-- Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Anthony McGill, and Gabriela Montero playing a John Williams arrangement of "Simple Gifts?" What, the Holy Spirit wasn't available as guest conductor? Yeow. I couldn't even see them (damned laggy video) but when all the solo instruments in the hands of those masters cut loose at the end while the piano banged out "Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free" I felt like all the world was music for just a moment. Um, wow.

-- Poor President-to-be Obama got confused when Chief Justice Roberts messed up the oath. They both ended up looking like they'd flubbed their lines, but they did a good job of plowing on through and getting to the good part.

-- Speaking of the good part, President Obama's speech was, as expected, excellent. (Washington Post transcript here if you missed it.) His message was far more centered and realistic than the wild crowds overcome by emotion led me to expect. If he can do it, if he can actually deliver on some of his rhetoric, he's going to be a great President.

"The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works...those of us who manage the public's knowledge will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government."

Oh, I want to believe him! Please let it be true, please let sanity triumph for once. Cynicism reigns when I consider the hypocrisy that characterizes the critters in Washington -- damn him for making me think there's hope, and damn him if he turns out to be just like all the others. Damn damn damn.

"What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task."

Yes, yes, yes. Our way of life is not free. It's built on the backs of people willing to serve in the best ways they can. Too many people have taken it for granted for far too long and if President Obama can make people actually take seriously their duties as citizens, well, that will be great too. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the man can give a speech.

-- The big flap about Bishop Robinson and Pastor Warren was stupid. Evangelical wing-nuts and leftist wackos were both up in arms about who gets to pray. As far as I'm concerned, if extremists on both sides are mad at him, President Obama is doing something right. A pox on them all, anyway -- it was Reverend Lowery who stole the show at the end. "We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right. Let all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen." Amen.

This is a great nation and I'm proud to serve it. Now: (big stern voice scolding me) GET BACK TO WORK!