Doing the Book Nook this weekend.

Tickled by the article in the Studio Fair that introduces me as another "notable author" who'll be featured. Don't feel very "notable" today. Home sick with a bad cold or early flu and slept until noon. But it was a high, yesterday, to discover I could not buy up the 20 books I wanted to take to the Book Nook at Studio Fair because they had sold! Books and Company only had about six of the 20 they got in. Mosquito Books was sold out. Even the University Book Store was down to seven of Sandra Wray's last order of 20. This may not be the sort of sales figures that rock the nation, but I get a thrill out of every book sold, so for me it was a concentrated dose of "wow".

I suspect I was glowing when I came across Derryl Murphy (OnSpec editor and fellow P.G. Sci Fi aficionado) in the parking lot.


Taking copies of ORU novella,Mekan'stan, to Book Nook to sell at cost plus a dollar: one of those things that is probably one more than I should have shot for, as it turns out, but it was exciting when I realized how easy it would be to lay it out in two columns in PageMaker and I enjoyed doing the cover with a bit of clip art from a site I subscribe to and Yukari's "Impression of Amel" which she sketched for us earlier this year. (Yukari's Amel, Luthan and Nersallian Dragon, appeared in the slide show she did for the Prince George book launch.)

In my eagerness and haste, however, I failed to check through the version of the RTF file I began with for the copy. I knew I had one I had edited many times. I suspect I found an earlier version. Assuming at a glance that I had the right RTF file, I rushed the print out to the copiers in time to get them into the Book Nook inventory and only afterwards sat down to read through the finished product. To my dismay I found many bugs!

The duplicate quotes, comma foul ups, and inconsistencies in font for Gelack words or formatting to indicate thought were bad enough. I found myself flinching over every one. But there are at least six substantive errors in the text of the "extra word", "missing word" or "wrong word typo" variety. Ouch. I toyed with withdrawing them all, but couldn't face the loss of investment with the Visa still gently smoking from the print run, so I struggled with the embarrassment of selling something with those sorts of jarring bloopers in it and got miserable.

I know the answer is to proof read, proof read, get someone else to proof read, and then proof read again, but somehow it always winds up getting down to the wire. I opted for sulking. After about half an hour of that I got fed up, went through the master print out with a pen and marked the jarring problems with a big star. My goal is to hand correct the starred problems with a thin, black pen, on each of the 20 copies I made. That clunks a little but most of them can be fixed with a discrete line or over-written letter, so at least it won't throw the reader off by virtue of stumbling over a sentence that just doesn't work.

Makes me want to scream or cry or rant when I do things like this. I seem to oscillate between poles of wreckless enthusiasm and the conviction I should publish post humously. Sensibly planning ahead and getting everything properly proof read just doesn't seem to be in the behavioral repetoire. :-(

Mekan'stan still looks very nice, IMHO.

posted by Lynda at 14:18   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
I just added Reality Skimming to the Eatonweb Portal, which styles itself the original weblog directory. I also seemed to have got my individual-pages problem fixed over on Incidental Findings. It may be that I have finally found a form that will stick, though I know I'm going to edit the template fitfully for the term of its natural or unnatural life.
posted by Anonymous at 20:57   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Invited Rob and Vince, the web pros who'll be doing our CD, to join the blog. Meeting them Wednesday afternoon to discuss.
posted by Lynda at 09:02   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Alison - did my pass through first half of chapter 10, Far Arena, and uploaded it. Also replied to Richard re: his input on Second Contact, which looked good. Wrap up on the octagon needs work. I suspected that.
posted by Lynda at 13:18   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Just back from the Symphony tonight, where David debuted as stage manager. The place was sold out, which was cool. About 100 of them were UNBC students, according to a rumor picked up in the intermission. The guest conductor was a novelty and the soloist on piano, Alex Tselyakov, got a good 'ole Prince George standing ovation for his rich, sleep but passionate rendition of Piano Concerto No. 2 by Rachmaninov. I enjoyed the opener, "Fall Fair", by Canadian composer Godfrey Ridout, too. But I think my favorite moment - apart from seeing David on stage setting up between pieces - was the encore in which Tselyakov did a bright and clever rendering of "Flight of the Bumblebee". Jenny was ecstatic and very proud of her father. Me too. He seemed entirely in his element. He knew exactly where that piano was supposed to go. :-) Ran in into a board member, in intermission, who said how glad they were to have him.
posted by Lynda at 23:42   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Lynda, I've taken a look through, but I remembered you were talking about doing another cut. Shall I leave it be until you've gone through again - whether now or in the next pass?
posted by Anonymous at 21:06   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
After the fact, I decided I was being a bit of a lead boots about some of the "roll over" suggestions Alison made, for the promo CD, while we were hole up pondering the possible in her room. So for penance I took a crack at disjoint rollovers in Fireworks today. Forgot to pick Jennifer up from choir in the process but that's another story. Used the opening for "Tell Me When To Look Serious" in the "web heap" form we've been discussing on the phone lately, just for fun. All it is at this point is a fascade with almost nothing beyond that, but it is something to start building out from. Won't link it into the www.okalrel.org site explicitly until it is more than that. Maybe XMAS we can work on it a bit? So long as I am good about getting through loads of Far Arena at the same time.

Here's the Fireworks-generated front page with disjoint rollovers.
[http://www.okalrel.org/TMWLS/]
posted by Lynda at 00:40   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
David (and all other ebook affictionados who have not found their way to it yet), what I was talking about in Vancouver was the free library at Baen books, which now numbers some 44 entries: novels, short story collections, a couple of novellas, usually, as I said, the first one-two-three books of a series. They specialize in military SF and military-styled fantasy - but they publish Lois McMaster Bujold and Elizabeth Moon (the first SF and so far only writer my Mum has been persuaded to read). My own favourites are the Honor Harrington series by David Weber, and the series by Weber and Ringo beginning with March to the Stars. The series that starts with An Oblique Approach is also fun - alternative history in the latter days of the Roman Empire. Baen also believes in putting up generous dollops of forthcoming books; see their schedule page.
posted by Anonymous at 22:25   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 

Note, operant word is "experimenting". :-)

intro2.swf

posted by Lynda at 17:21   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 

Alison, here's the "Hex to Rel" thing I did as a PNG file one day while playing with Fireworks. (I asked you whether you had seen it before at VCON, while we were noodling around with design for the CD we hope to have by TorCon, and you said you hadn't. Probably means I never got it up onto the web site.)
[HEXtoREL.png]

You have to save it an open it with something that knows how to do PNG files to see animation.

I also have an exported SWF version that is pretty jerky and a bit cut off. Also fails to stop at the end and swiftly pops back to the beginning. Sigh.
[HTML page with SWF version]

posted by Lynda at 22:43   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
On my way to VCON

... see you there, Alison! Great news from Edge about the new editor! And here's where I have a copy of the VCON "release" of the
ORU CD Sampler. [Note: it isn't a working copy of what's on the disk, except for the book launch part.

posted by Lynda at 14:54   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Well, it's fish (to which I'm partial) rather than primates (to which Lynda is partial), but here's another commentary from PNAS on the subject of sex roles and evolutionary biology ... Sex roles, ornaments, and evolutionary explanation.
posted by Anonymous at 22:28   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
... is the title of an article I ran across in my rather Brownian track across the web in search of something coherent to say on the subject of personality/temperament/genetics/characterization. It is the commentaryintroducing an article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on social intelligence, innovation and enhanced brain size among primates, looking at the correlation between brain size and innovation, social learning and tool use among primates; all three were positively correlated. The commentary gives a brief summary of the various schools of thought about what drives the expansion of the primate brain - despite the metabolic costs.
posted by Anonymous at 22:14   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Lynda, please don't forget my keys! David, attach them to her and don't let her come up with any better ideas!

I have figured out how Erien will disgrace himself at the end of TMWTLS. It involves a large mug of hot chocolate, the grand Demoran pavilion, and a bit of misplaced engineer's enthusiasm. Whether he'll break any bones remains to be seen. If I can finish doing my homework for v-con, that scene might get written.

So far I am doing panels on The Future of Medicine, Triumph of the Adequate (I think that's the title), and Hard Characterization. The latter two require homework. The former merely requires getting my head together.

JM Straczynski (Babylon 5) is coming to V-con. I was on a panel once with him - had two terribly fannish moments. After publically saying how great I thought his structures were, I then quietly took him to task afterwards for modelling lousy first aid. I yell at the screen every time Marcus picks the critically injured Ivanova up without C-spine precautions. He's a ranger, for pity's sake. (I know, it's all imaginary - see what I mean, a fannish moment - but it's out of keeping with the character's training, and I do have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about how poorly TV models behaviour in critical situations) ... I think I hope JMS does not remember me! But I also want to know that he's working on something substantial. I have the impression he burned out trying to keep B5 going despite never knowing what was going to happen from one season to the next re: funding. But I have never heard that he has made excuses or compared the work he did with what he might have done. He's stands behind the work as it is; no excuses. And the very best of Babylon5: "Severed Dreams", "The Coming of Shadows" and some of the other great episodes is a masterclass in set-up and follow through of scenes. If you look at "Severed Dreams", each scene sets up a question that is answered in the next. Not to mention the shades of grey, the movement of characters back and forth between light and shadow, the fall and redemption of the most unlikely people.

I feel more fannish moments coming on.

Speaking of fannish moments, if you're finished with it, and can fit it in your bag, Lynda, could you please bring along Diplomatic Immunity.
posted by Anonymous at 20:37   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Why does my posting via e-mail bollix the formatting on this blog and give rise to assorted $Blogtitle - Value messages sprinkled across it, which disappear when I return, log in and post properly. This inquiring mind would like to know, but finding out is low on a fairly long list.
posted by Anonymous at 21:59   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
By the time I got to work this morning, I had Erien and Ditatt hanging out in my mind, having a heart to heart. I think Erien will go to ground on Monitum after Amel and Luthan get back from Demora - and Ditatt will track him down. I was having trouble getting him to let his guard down enough for the scene I wanted when he was anywhere else, no matter how much Turquoise he drank! And the library in Monitum would give Ditatt in turn the liberty to come out with the two questions that Erien never wants to answer. I did not want to leave the whole murder/investigation begun in Throne Price hanging - that has to be resolved somehow, or it would seem gratuitous, and that might be the one place that 'Tatt, who has been grimly pursuing the truth, and running into stonewalling from Erien, Amel, Ameron and his own Captain of Errants, may finally get the answer he wants. Though goodness knows when I'll get to the scene I want to write. Although I shouldn't gripe - I was off doing other words.
posted by Anonymous at 21:56   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments

 
Another night gone by - although I'll admit it, I spent it dealing with
the scheming, plotting and shooting gang in the OTHER novel. It's 11 pm,
and I feel my eyes puffing up with eyestrain, so off I go to bed. I have
a neat idea for a setting of Erien picking Luthan's brains, one of
Silver Hearth's better kept secrets that will delight Erien for
different reasons that it delights the Demish, but that will have to
wait. Trying the e-mail in trick again; let's see if I remembered the
secret password.

posted by Anonymous at 23:03   permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments