I love everything about Spring. My blue iris are showing off, fairly exploding in blossoms. The hackberry tree has panicles of blooms hanging down, and the Bradford pears are showering white petals like snow. The dogwoods are popping. Even the little tiny purple chickweed blossoms in the grass along the roadside are pretty.
There's just one thing I don't like.
The weather.
You know what I mean: the roller coaster ride of hot/cold/hot/cold, sunny/tornados/sunny/tornados.
Today was a hot tornado day. We had two circulations go by WAY closer to my house than I would have liked, not to mention a couple more come through other parts of the county. And my parents only got power back a couple hours ago. At least we only got quarter-sized hail and below here, instead of the baseball stuff that fell a few miles to the east.
The odd thing is, the hackberry (around which base the iris are clustered) and the iris appear to have survived the bombardment.
Spring is...interesting.
Banner
Friday, April 10, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Feedback on Burnout
I'm starting to get feedback from people who've read advance copies of Burnout. Here is one I'm very proud of from a Mensa member:
"I just finished reading it [Burnout]. Really well done! Probably my
favorite space themed thriller since "Shadows of Medusa" and Ben Bova's "Mars"
trilogy. I am glad I got to meet you at the MidSouth Con... Anyway,
I look forward to reading your subsequent novels. You deserve all the
credit for a remarkably detailed piece of conspiracy (my favorite subject!)."
~ David Nora
It doesn't get much better than that!
"I just finished reading it [Burnout]. Really well done! Probably my
favorite space themed thriller since "Shadows of Medusa" and Ben Bova's "Mars"
trilogy. I am glad I got to meet you at the MidSouth Con... Anyway,
I look forward to reading your subsequent novels. You deserve all the
credit for a remarkably detailed piece of conspiracy (my favorite subject!)."
~ David Nora
It doesn't get much better than that!
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Weather
Well, tonight was interesting. One tornadic circulation went to our north, and a second to our south. I'm trying to keep an eye to the skies as a stormspotter, while simultaneously tutoring a student in physics. The nearby creek is well out of its banks, and even the major roads are close to flooding.
AAAAAAnnnnd...
Round two comes about 1-2am tonight.
I love tornado season. *sigh*
AAAAAAnnnnd...
Round two comes about 1-2am tonight.
I love tornado season. *sigh*
Monday, March 30, 2009
Report on ImagiCon
Pardon if there are very many typos in this. I'm still very tired and my fingers don't seem to be listening to my brain too well.
We were in the Birmingham/Jefferson (Co.) Convention Center for the con itself, with the huge and VERY nice Sheraton Convention Center attached. The facilities were very good, but rather spread out - BJCC on one block, Sheraton on adjacent block, parking garage in still a 3rd city block. I covered a lot of territory walking. Thank heavens for elevators and escalators.
By and large the con was excellent. Good topics, good people, very amenable to their guests. There were a few glitches: the schedule was a little confused; I didn't know that, as an author, I had a signing table until Saturday afternoon; and the equivalent of the con suite ran out of food by suppertime Saturday and didn't get any more until Sunday morning. They also had a tendency to schedule panels too early on all 3 days. But they were also very welcoming to friendly advice.
I'm not sure how many people were there; Darrell and I were agreed that the venue was more spread out which made it hard to estimate the crowds. But I'm thinking around 1000.
What was REALLY cool was that I had FANS there - fans that recognized me BY FACE, who knew my website, knew what I did and about Burnout and were delighted to see and hear me. It was strange being a bona fide celebrity. Several people came up to me and told me that I made the weekend for them.
My schedule was booked solid - but then, I told them to use me. I had 1 panel scheduled Friday night and was invited to a second, so I went from 8pm until past 11:00. Saturday I had panels straight from 10am until 3pm. I discovered my autograph table and did that from 3-6pm, then had panels from 6-11pm. I was supposed to have a break from 8-9, but the 7pm panel went 2 hours. Then I had a (I thought it was) 9am writing workshop Sunday morning, that I thought I was early for at 8:50 only to find they'd rescheduled it for 8am, so I was late. But nobody minded. We left a little before 11am because we had to be back in HSV for a gig at 2pm.
I'm dead tired, but feeling good.
We were in the Birmingham/Jefferson (Co.) Convention Center for the con itself, with the huge and VERY nice Sheraton Convention Center attached. The facilities were very good, but rather spread out - BJCC on one block, Sheraton on adjacent block, parking garage in still a 3rd city block. I covered a lot of territory walking. Thank heavens for elevators and escalators.
By and large the con was excellent. Good topics, good people, very amenable to their guests. There were a few glitches: the schedule was a little confused; I didn't know that, as an author, I had a signing table until Saturday afternoon; and the equivalent of the con suite ran out of food by suppertime Saturday and didn't get any more until Sunday morning. They also had a tendency to schedule panels too early on all 3 days. But they were also very welcoming to friendly advice.
I'm not sure how many people were there; Darrell and I were agreed that the venue was more spread out which made it hard to estimate the crowds. But I'm thinking around 1000.
What was REALLY cool was that I had FANS there - fans that recognized me BY FACE, who knew my website, knew what I did and about Burnout and were delighted to see and hear me. It was strange being a bona fide celebrity. Several people came up to me and told me that I made the weekend for them.
My schedule was booked solid - but then, I told them to use me. I had 1 panel scheduled Friday night and was invited to a second, so I went from 8pm until past 11:00. Saturday I had panels straight from 10am until 3pm. I discovered my autograph table and did that from 3-6pm, then had panels from 6-11pm. I was supposed to have a break from 8-9, but the 7pm panel went 2 hours. Then I had a (I thought it was) 9am writing workshop Sunday morning, that I thought I was early for at 8:50 only to find they'd rescheduled it for 8am, so I was late. But nobody minded. We left a little before 11am because we had to be back in HSV for a gig at 2pm.
I'm dead tired, but feeling good.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
MidSouthCon Report
MidSouthCon is one of the best SF cons at which it's ever been my privilege to guest. They know what they're doing, they run things smoothly and they treat their guests - even the non GOHs - like royalty. Attendance, hubby and I estimate, was 1500-2000. We had 3-4 hotels completely booked up.
I told 'em to use me, and they did. I had 3-5 panels every day, including a couple of different opportunities for book readings, and an hour on "Professional's Row" to hawk my books.
I also ran into an old friend from school, which was wonderful. He came looking especially for me, as he'd heard from my mom to a friend to his mom to him that I was an SF author now.
In addition I met Stanton Friedman, the UFO researcher. He and I turned out to be like-minded. He's not the "true believer" crackpot some would have you think. He's a nuclear physicist by training and experience, and a skeptic as well. Altogether a delightful, intelligent gentleman. We clicked, and he wound up getting a copy of Burnout while I got a copy of one of his books - autographed to each other, of course. :-) By Sunday morning breakfast, he'd already gotten well into it and was singing its praises to the other people at the table. We're going to stay in touch and I might even be able to get a promo blurb out of him.
I networked with a few other cons' peeps, and other writers and small publishers, got some advice and such like. My friend that put Burnout on his display invited me to submit a themed short story for an anthology though, and I think I might do that. Just for fun. It's a comedy SF thing, looks to be.
My panels ranged from science stuff to literary stuff to SF applications in science. Very interesting stuff, all of it. And the con ended with an author's game which was incredibly well attended for a 2-4pm Sunday event, called "It Was A Dark And Stormy Night." The gist of this is that throughout the con, people write down odd quotations they overhear and stick 'em in a box, then each author gets a handful of these pieces of paper with quotes and, beginning with the game title, a character and location called out by the audience, we have to take the quotes one at a time and string together a story, round robin. Allen Gilbreath told me, after that, I was officially a writer that nobody could fluster! (And after wordcrafting a quote like, "She rolled out of bed, jumped on her menstrual cycle, and ran my ass over" into the story, I agree with him...)
I told 'em to use me, and they did. I had 3-5 panels every day, including a couple of different opportunities for book readings, and an hour on "Professional's Row" to hawk my books.
I also ran into an old friend from school, which was wonderful. He came looking especially for me, as he'd heard from my mom to a friend to his mom to him that I was an SF author now.
In addition I met Stanton Friedman, the UFO researcher. He and I turned out to be like-minded. He's not the "true believer" crackpot some would have you think. He's a nuclear physicist by training and experience, and a skeptic as well. Altogether a delightful, intelligent gentleman. We clicked, and he wound up getting a copy of Burnout while I got a copy of one of his books - autographed to each other, of course. :-) By Sunday morning breakfast, he'd already gotten well into it and was singing its praises to the other people at the table. We're going to stay in touch and I might even be able to get a promo blurb out of him.
I networked with a few other cons' peeps, and other writers and small publishers, got some advice and such like. My friend that put Burnout on his display invited me to submit a themed short story for an anthology though, and I think I might do that. Just for fun. It's a comedy SF thing, looks to be.
My panels ranged from science stuff to literary stuff to SF applications in science. Very interesting stuff, all of it. And the con ended with an author's game which was incredibly well attended for a 2-4pm Sunday event, called "It Was A Dark And Stormy Night." The gist of this is that throughout the con, people write down odd quotations they overhear and stick 'em in a box, then each author gets a handful of these pieces of paper with quotes and, beginning with the game title, a character and location called out by the audience, we have to take the quotes one at a time and string together a story, round robin. Allen Gilbreath told me, after that, I was officially a writer that nobody could fluster! (And after wordcrafting a quote like, "She rolled out of bed, jumped on her menstrual cycle, and ran my ass over" into the story, I agree with him...)
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