Early this afternoon, I met with author Shon Clark regarding his manuscript. He and his work are my first official Editorialship for Immanion Press/Megalithica. I’m so excited. So, I drove up to the northwest 23rd area and enjoyed a nice eight block walk down to his office. We spent two hours chatting away about his work, our philosophies, and other random topics. I think we hit it off rather well and I’m totally looking forward to seeing where we take his book and publishing it. Also found out he’s a big gamer, so I invited him into our D&D campaign. With luck we may have a new character in our midst.

Got home and discovered that our new digital camera arrived. Yesterday we got enticed by the amazon.com gold box deal and picked up a Canon PowerShot PowerShot SD770 IS. I immediately broke into the package and “awwwed” over the new toy. It’s shiny and oh so very small. The battery pack thingy is totally cool and beats the heck out of my old Sony digital camera. Looking at this camera really makes me wish I had gotten a second so that kender and I could both claim one as our own. I will need to get a bigger SD chip and a case (yay for bag hoage!) so that it’s protected.

On the email front, I heard back from Peachpit Press (publishers of the Tagging book). I sent them a link to the review and they’re sending me out three more books for review. They’re sending me one on using Facebook with your projects, another on presentation building, and a third on narrative storytelling. So yay, more fun books to read and write about.

Currently I’m just sitting here waiting for the rest of our gaming group to arrive. With luck, I’ll hit level 6 tonite. And according to the 4th edition player’s handbook, Saelune will get a new Utility Prayer, Cure Serious Wounds.

Oohers, Ed brought cookies. Yum. Yes, it’s been a good day indeed.

I thought it to be the strangest single firework display I had ever seen. Then I mentioned it to kender (who got home around 11:30 from snowboarding) and he told me it was a comet. A google search later, I discovered that it may have been Comet Lulin, which had been passing by Earth during that time. I’m glad I saw it.

On Ravens in the Library: Still waiting to hear from the editors on the book’s release. It was supposed to get sent to the publisher this week. Due to illness and business, they’ve been running behind schedule. But the imminent release of the book has me all ancy… I want it to arrive now, darnit!

On Touched and the Editing Process: I’m slowly making my way through TOUCHED. I’m halfway through revising Chapter Two as well reworking other plot issues in my head. Cyd, my writing partner, read through the revisions on Chapter One last week and gave me feedback. She sent me this on IM: “You have found your story, and I salute you!” This compliment pleases and surprises me. I didn’t think that I’d be getting a large thumbs up so early in the process. On the other hand, I’m glad she likes what I’ve done to try and capture my audience’s imagination and draw them into the world and story I’m telling. Now all I need to do with that chapter is just wordsmith and smoothing. Emailed the chapter to the others in my writing group and hope they also like what I’ve done.

On Chinese medicine: I’ve started acupuncture treatments. Last year, my friend Taylor Ellwood gave me a free consultation with Elie Cole and I finally went in to see her. She’s very knowledgeable, easy to talk to, and gives me much to work on and think about. I’ve always been curious about eastern medicines and am happy that I’ve been given an opportunity to see what it can do for my asthma, allergies and bipolarism. So far I’ve experienced the acupuncture needles, been cupped (a relaxing technique but leaves huge bruises– kender freaked when he saw them), and received nutritional recommendations to further improve my heath. I’ve received two treatments so far and left each appointment feeling more at ease with myself and calm.

On the Tarot School: I received the first lesson for my tarot classes last week and am slowly going through the materials. It’s totally not what I expected, but this is good. This lesson delves right into numerology. I’m excited by this new material but I also feel intimidated. I hope I can get the work done. I also need to schedule a phone call with my instructors. I have questions about how to submit my homework and need to tell them which deck I’m using with this course.

On The Fountain: We watched The Fountain last night. It’s billed as a sci-fi thriller but to toss it into that general category does a disservice to this film. Darren Aronofsky, who also did Requiem for a Dream and Pi (also amazing movies), crafted one hell of a mind-twist. While the plot entangles and entwines the stories of three lovers, it leaves you with a feeling of something deeper and primal at work. It’s more about redemption, love, death and finding peace within the universe. It reminds me that time is precious and that I need to focus on the things I love: my hubby, my work and spirituality. And I’m sure that it’s the big reason why I couldn’t sleep.

Okay, now that I’ve spewed all this out I’m going to try and be productive now. Diving back into Chapter Two of TOUCHED.

Current Works
Dayjob: Things have been a bit slow at the dayjob. I did get to write a first draft of a white paper, which was fun. I’ll be linking to it when it gets approved in the future. I’m also learning a lot about interviewing SMEs, which is something I could use the practice with.

DIY Planner: Finished writing and revising draft of this Thursday’s article. Sent it out to two friends to edit. Got some good feedback and I’m excited to release it on Thursday. I hope it generates good feedback. Also edited my friend Taylor’s article, which we posted today. I did a bit more work on it than I did last week and I think it’s paying off as people are already commenting on it. Readers in the blogosphere are a hard group to understand. Just when you think you’ve written something great for comments, they don’t post. Still trying to get ahold of how they think and what the trends of my readership there are.

Daily Sketch: It’s been awhile since I’ve written one of these. Need to re-form the habit of doing it daily. Tonight’s topic, “a painting comes to life”. I sorta cheated on this one as the story wrote itself onto two index cards instead of one. Oh well, it was worth the set-up, I think. It’s a bit surreal, I call it “Come to Life”.

(Did anyone else notice that all the paragraphs in this section started with a D? Go figure.)

Mundania
Sorry I’ve been gone for a bit, I get caught up in life and whatnot and sometimes just am not able to get writing daily posts or other news on my own site. I’m trying really hard to change that tho. A lot’s been going on in the industry and I do have a few thoughts on some big news. Expect to see that soon.

Had a busy day at work today. Still not really doing much writing or “real job” work but I had a lot of meetings. Learned just how detailed the engineers need to go in making the products work. As in micron. Very eye opening. Also had an interesting discussion with the lead today. Won’t go into it here but it left me with a few more to-do items on my soul searching and personal improvement front. Some things I’ve been working on for years. (Aside: need to start working on grok again, so i can post these things there!)

To Do List
– edit Taylor’s DIYP article
– finish writing my DIYP article
– read

Ye Olde Linkfest
–Is it Prime? Here’s an interesting post about quickly identifying prime numbers. While it’s not directly related to writing per se, I do see this as a great exercise to keep your mental health up to par. That and it DOES mention Neil Stephenson in it. He’s a literary god.

– Setting up a Moleskine This post caught me by surprise. I love reading how people set up their journals and notebooks and this one is a great example of that. Perusing thru the site, i’m even more surprised at the content and the level-headedness and value this Pastor has to offer, even for someone like me.

Current Works
Dayjob: Continued sponge mode. Played with Epic Editor and Vasont. Learned a bit more about the process i’ll be using to write service notes.

Sketch: Tonight’s entry, Threading a Needle, is brought to you by a very tired kender. Tried to write this one as fast as I could. I’m tired too.

E-Book Review: Requested a review copy of an e-book a friend wrote about how to use WordPress as a CMS application. Need to read it over and then send her a quote for her website. Will also make a longer review for DIYP, to be published in the future.

Mundania
Gawds, last week and this past weekend was busy. I had a wonderful early Friday as work sent us home early. Spent the day writing in my journal, and playing catch up with some chores. Went out to dinner with Michelle at a new indian place that served good food. And read. Played with tarot a bit too. Which, while most would wonder why I mention it here… but I do see this tool as tied directly into my writing practice. I’ll write more about this later, some day.

Saturday and Sunday were spent moving ed. What was supposed to be one day, turned into two and tired me out. I barely had time to do what I wanted to do. No sketches for the weekend and I didn’t really write much. I *did* get to do a tarot reading for my good friend Ember, I hope that helped her out. She’s going thru some tough times and I just want to be there for her as any good friend would be.

Feeling run down today… I hope I’m not getting sick. That’s the LAST thing I need to hit my immune system to drag me further away from my writing/reading/tarot goals.

To Do List
– Need to get back on a real schedule.
– Contact Wine Adventures for writer’s guidelines. Will email editor to see if they can send them electronically.

Ye Olde Linkfest
–Writing eases cancer This article, straight from the BBC, describes how journalling helps improve the quality of life in cancer patients. This is no real big surprise for me, seeing that journalling is a great way to get all those ideas, thoughts and feelings locked inside one’s brain, out and on the written paper. Once they’re out and in ink, it’s easier to identify how you feel, and what needs to be done on occasion. I’ve always hated bottling up how I feel.

– 2008 Hugo Award Nominations They released these nominations a few days ago, and I’m proud to see so many good reads show up. What really makes me happy tho is the category for “Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form and Short Forms”. The screenplay for Stardust made it to the list, as well as, several of my favorite Dr. Who episodes (including Blink! OMG, best episode ever) and one Torchwood episode (mmm, Captain Jack Hotness).

Current Works
Dayjob: Continued on with the glossary. Tomorrow I get to switch gears a bit and work on a new project. Exciting.

ClearAccess: Finished round one of the doc revision. Sent this off to review with the marketing director. Need to make final touches to the Word doc version while at work and have a PC running MS Word available. Sorta wishing everyone there had a mac and Apple Pages. Currently coming up with quotes and estimates for 2 other projects.

Sketch of the Day: Kender tossed me an easy one today, “The Floating Castle”. I sorta like this one.

Researched potential market: While reading the Writer’s Journal, I came across a magazine, Wine Adventure, who is accepting essays that fit into their magazine. For my last birthday, my friends kidnapped me and surprised me with a wine blending class. It was a good experience and I think it’d make a good essay. Need to find a copy of this magazine to read and request writing guidelines.

Mundania
Been thinking a lot about time and personal projects. Part of me wishes I had more time to work on my personal projects, while the other half thinks I should figure out how to utilize the time and pockets of time I have now a bit better. I feel like my work is on a rushed schedule and that my writing style and voice suffers. I wish I could write more like Jenn and carefully craft my prose so it turns from rough uncut crystals into polished gems.

I went to bed last nite remembering my college creative writing classes and how much I miss that atmosphere of focus and dedication. I wish i had more writerly friends around so i could talk about words and story ideas and plot lines and characters. And to have a team of dedicated writers who read thru my drafts and gave me the high quality feedback that i crave.

I could apply for an MFA somewhere. But the thought of doing that terrifies me… it’s the cash, the extensive time sink and the loss of some of what I am currently doing. I dunno… i just want to be better at writing, to make fun and meaningful fiction and on occasion get published for it. In addition to writing essays on tarot and writing and creativity. *gryn* Is that too much to ask for?

To Do List
– Beer30 with the crew
– visit with joel
– come up with estimates
– read
– write

Ye Olde Linkfest
– 8 Ways to Train Yourself to Be Creative Nice essay that teaches you how to boost your creativity with 8 different techniques. I like that this essay comes at creativity from the perspective that EVERYONE is creative.

– Kids say the darnest things 25 funny analogies brought to you by english school teachers. Oh man, these are hilarious. Makes me wonder if what I wrote in HS was as bad as some of these sentences. Too bad I didn’t really keep any prose I wrote from that period.

Current Works
Mythic Writers: Got together with Kim, purchased domain account and created the website for our mythic writing non-profit org, Mythic Writers. Not much is there yet, but we plan on getting a blog, forums and a few other goodies up and running soon. I can’t wait for us to get this up and off the ground.

DIY Planner: Finished the spring cleaning of non-published works. Approached writer who had submitted article for publication about getting it on the site for tomorrow. He agreed, and the article is now in the que for tomorrow. Also going over more apps for review for site.

Sketch of the Day: Ok, kender’s trying to get tricky on me. Tonight’s bit, “the faerie makes good it’s escape”, is now up for your reading pleasure.

Mundania
I really should not be allowed to drink anything with caffeine. Even just a little amount gets me so hyped up. But yeah, wanted a chai to sip and drink while working on the Mythic Writers site. *gryn* Fast forward to now, 3 hours later, and I am still all hyped up as hell and trying to get my mind to slow down so I’ll be able to focus on getting some creative writing and reading done after dinner.

Overall, I feel like it’s been a really productive day and weekend. On Friday, we went to Powell’s where I found a free book that’ll become the basis for an art class in October. I also received a new doc to go over and format for Clear Access. Spent 3 hours on that, and will spend another couple of hours on it between today and tomorrow. Love my books. Have so many new ones sitting next to my work area that the stack is almost as tall as the windowsill. Gotta start reading faster. And then, of course, got work done today.

To Do List
– meeting with kim, re: mythic writers, at the Ladybug Cafe
– go thru unpublished entries in DIYP
– write
– journal
– read

Ye Olde Linkfest
– Fun Dashboard Widgets for Writers This post, from Poynter Online, gives a list of fun dashboard widgets for us Mac OS X users who also write. I personally love the TPS Reports widget (gives you fake place holder text for projects) and the Word Counter Widget (does the word counting for you).

– Literary Rejections on Display Blog Here’s a site that is entirely dedicated to writing rejections. Jenn showed me this site the other day as we were talking about fears of writerly rejection and jealousy. I started poking around here but need to do some more.

Current Works
Tarot Essay: Wrote my bio for the piece, in addition to fixing the 3 comments that the editor had. I filled out the contract and submitted it as well. Now… we wait until the book gets into publication cycle and then published next year!

Sketch of the Day: Kender gave me the subject, “a leaf falls from a tree”. Finally an easy topic for me to visualize and write. Go check out the result.

Dayjob: Continued reading docs to assemble the glossary.

ClearAccess: Spoke with Joel at ClearAccess regarding his thoughts and desires for a manual. Have a much better idea of what they want now, and still think it’s doable. ANd fun. I like writing manuals and trying to get them readable to the widest audience available. However, I have two concerns: how much time do I have realistically to give to this project and how to give them a fixed-cost estimate. I believe this project is a bit bigger than a fixed-cost would be. I have some time to think on this as there’s still some documents to read and a scope to create.

Mundania
This evening was perfect. It was grey and overcast but a bit warm. The smell of wood burning fires filled the air and it reminded me of the up and coming festival season.

Went for a real run today, my first 1.3 miles on solid ground since starting to work out again. I need new shoes, the old Nike Pegs that I bought oh-so-long-ago are dead and my feet are feeling the pain of flat shoes. Maybe I’ll head out this weekend and treat myself to a pair of new shoes.

Other than this, not much to report…just the same old thoughts of trying to find time to fit way too many fun and creative writing projects into my life while doing tech writing full time AND have a happy hubby life. One of these days I may figure out the secret to doing all this at once.

To Do List
– get Studio ready for Ed’s arrival
– exercise
– get finished draft of tarot essay out to editor
– write

Ye Olde Linkfest
Dutrope This site gives a list of over 2000 places to publish stories and novels. I haven’t searched this yet but I think it’s going to be an awesome resource. It even offers a free online submissions tracker, that alone is rather neat.

9 Ways to Jumpstart Your Writing Goal This article from Dumb Little Man has some good suggestions on keeping a writing life and your goals on track. Most of these ideas aren’t new to me, but like much of what I read about the writing process, are a constant reminder of all the things I should do to meet my goals of being a successful writer.

Word Count: Broken Silence: 72 words; Contest Story: 154 words

Current Works
Tarot essay: SQUEEE! Just got word tonight that my essay got accepted into the Book Anthology. *does happy dance* The Editor sent me out a message thanking me for the submission, letting me know that there are minor edits (I also need a bio), and attached a publication contract. I’m going to try and get it back to him by the end of this week, but I do have a small quandary. Do I use my real life name or do I use my magickal name. I’m hoping that the Editor can give me advice on which to use. I’d prefer to use my real life name but I also know that tying that into a magickal life means that some publication houses may NOT want to print me because I am “pagan,” or “into witchcraft.” Of course, I still need to figure out what to put in a bio and make that sound good.

Sketch of the Day: Today’s topic was “a blaster shot rings out in a crowd”. Talk about another tough one. I had an image in my head of a small body running through a crowd with a stolen item tucked in their hands just as the impact of the bullet rings out and brings them down to the ground. The end result is called “Broken Silence”. Again, I think I may want to revisit this one again some day to polish it up more.

Contest Story Entry: Jenn sent me the link to this contest, being put on by Symphony Space. The theme is “Are We There Yet?” and it can’t be more than 4 pages. The deadline is this Friday. I dunno if I’ll have time to whip something up for this by then but it’ll give me experience in writing specifically for a contest with a theme. I started a story today, will work on it more tomorrow.

Dayjob: The hunt for more terms to add to a glossary continues. Expanded entries to include synonyms where applicable. Also moved into my permanent cube space. This means I get to bring in toys now. Yay.

Mundania
Oh wow… today moved by in a blur. Not really sure what to say here. Had a great weekend getaway at the coast. Drove the jackrabbit up (our name for the new car) and got some great photos of the shaggy trees, coastline and other miscellany. Only downfall to the whole weekend was that it was too short. I can’t wait to take Kender back for a longer weekend trip.

I started reading the copy of Writer’s Journal late Saturday night. Had the sounds of the ocean coming in from the patio. Felt so relaxed that I practically fell asleep with the magazine across my lap and my head in my hand. It had a few good articles in there but on the whole I’ve decided that I prefer Writer’s Digest. It just appeals to me more.

To Do List
– pick Michelle up from airport and take her home
– dinner at Firkin & Frog
– journal
– write

Ye Olde Linkfest
The Fine Art of Wireframes Short and simple post on how an Information Architect uses wireframes to communicate web design ideas. The use of sketches in place of words intrigues me and I often wish I were better with drawing abilities to sketch out my ideas. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Believer Magazine I haven’t read into this too much, but Jenn turned me onto it. It’s a curiously fun and bizarre online mag.

Current Works
Sketch of the Day: While he was rushing around getting ready for night snowboarding, Kender threw me a curveball. The topic: the Ace of Swords and the Queen of Cups pass each other on the street. The result is a small narrative that tells, more than shows, what happened during this meeting. I’m not too happy with the telling bit but this is how I saw it in my head. Maybe one day I will revise this one and try and show the event more.

Dayjob: Progressed more on building the glossary. Got clarification and direction from my boss. Have NO idea when this’ll be done. Hope I’m on the right track.

Mundania
I’m feeling rather chatty today. Blame it on Furday. I am so utterly delighted that the weekend is here and I get to spend a night at the coast with my love. On top if it all, today was a great day.

It kicked off quite early, and in a unusual way. I received a very surprising and interesting email. It was from a DIYP reader. Which in itself isn’t very odd, because I tend to get a lot of messages from our readers. What made this odd though, was who the reader turned out to be. Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, best known as the author of “Women Who Run with the Wolves”, emailed me. Whoa. She wrote a lovely message thanking me for inspiring her as well as giving me encouragement on my decision to take some time off and feed my soul and inner life after “the week of change” happened. She linked me an essay that she wrote, not to long ago I may add, on her thoughts about losing her own puppykid. I cried a bit as I read about her story on her puppy with cancer; but it also helped me feel connected– it was a gentle reminder that I am not alone in grieving for the loss of a furkid.

My mother bought me the Wolves book when I was a freshman (or was it sophomore) in college, and in a way, reading the book helped inspire me to want to write mythic fiction and be a wild, native american woman in my own right. Fast forward to today, 10+ years later and through some crazy way, I’m inspiring her with my creativity articles. Who would have thunk it. I haven’t replied back yet… not really sure what to say. I’m humbled and at a loss for words and a bit star struck. I think I’ll respond when we get home from the Oregon Coast on Sunday. Need to figure out what to say.

Work went well. Although I had trouble focusing… had a bad case of the iwantittobecaturdaynow-itis. Today’s major milestone was getting my laptop hooked up to the multi-function printer system nearest me. It’s the last generation model of the machine I’m providing manuals for. *squees* I did a few test prints and it was fun to see how fast the machine worked. That thing is so kewl. I totally want one for the perch, that is… if I had a few thousand laying around. But think of all the books and journals and zines I could publish. I know, I am such a paper dork. *gryns*

Left work at 4pm and decided to have a mini artist’s date before going home. Basically this means that I went over to Border’s Books to rescue a few books. Picked up the latest issues of both Writer’s Digest (I couldn’t wait for my subscription to start) and Writer’s Journal (based off a recommendation from Jenn) as well as 2 more books. Yay for refugees. I finished the date off by visiting ColdStone for a milkshake and Whole Foods Market for some dinner.

Kender’s off on Mt Hood tonight for the last night ski event, which means I have the whole Perch to myself now. Got my music playing on smudge, a kitten resting on the tuffet and a few books to wrap up. I couldn’t ask for a more peaceful night of solitude.

And now, if you will excuse me, I have some serious reading to catch up on. And a cat who desperately wants my attention. Happy weekend everyone.

To Do List
– have myself an artist’s date: pick up new refugee books and magazines from Borders and read in solitude
– Read
– Write sketch of the day
– Laundry
– Pack for our weekend getaway to the oregon coast

Ye Olde Linkfest
Top 10 Grammar Myths A few good grammar tips to keep in mind when writing. Some of them are “DUH”-like; but a few are things I need to keep in mind. The rest of grammar girl’s site is pretty interesting as well.

Unleash Your Inner Genius Short list of ideas from Lifehack.org that helps you quickly brainstorm ideas. I collect brainstorming techniques. Have been doing this since high school where I was determined to always have ideas to fit any situation or event for student government. What’s kewl about this list is that it has some new ones that I haven’t thought about before (like the random object solving the problem idea).