The game:
Fat Princess for the PlayStation 3.

The game concept (taken directly from the official website):
Frantic and fun, Fat Princess pits two hordes of players against each other in comic medieval battle royale. Your goal is to rescue your beloved princess from the enemy dungeon. There’s a catch though: your adversary has been stuffing her with food to fatten her up and it’s going to take most of your army working together to carry her back across the battlefield.

The resulting drama:
EVERYWHERE. I recommend starting with the Feministe blog post, and don't forget to check out the one over on Shakespeare's Sister.

Here are some well-thought-out, sensitive responses to Melissa's post. Hahaha! Calling someone a cunt is always a good way to win your argument! Oh, how I love ad hominem attacks!

Of course, I might be being sarcastic. Or something.

Regarding this whole thing, I have one thing to say -- I would play Velcro Princess in a heartbeat, especially if you got to choose whether you would like to rescue a prince or a princess.

 

We are filled for the mid-late August session, and we are one above to max participants that Mr. Gunn wants in the class.  Anyone mind shooting for the spring session? 

Also, for those who haven't already done so, please email me at wcouvillier@gmail.com with your best email to use for this.  And please don't forget to let me know who you are on LJ....

1)  alaneer  (1^st)

2)  chordam7  (1^st)

3)  gvdub  (1^st)

4)  blzblack  (1^st)

5)  therinth  (1^st)

6)  jamietr  (1^st)
7)  liamstliam  (1^st)
8)  gsemones  (1^st)

I've received some very good news on the reprint front. But I'm pretty sure I shouldn't go public about it yet, at least until the contract is signed.

So I will keep quiet for now, while failing dismally to suppress a grin.

V.

One of the panels I did at Readercon was on the Fermi Paradox. Roughly speaking, the Fermi Paradox is the question of where are the aliens? Enrico Fermi postulated that the age and size of the universe implied that extraterrestrial life ought to be common, which led him to wonder why there was no credible evidence of their having visited Earth. (Wikipedia has a fairly good write-up at Wikipedia: The Fermi Paradox.

One could argue that the paradox isn't really a paradox, of course, and there are a variety of solutions to the paradox. But the panel was about why there isn't more science fiction written about the paradox.

It turns out that a reporter for io9, Nivair H. Gabriel, was in the audience, and Gabriel reported on the panel today at IO9: Fermi Paradox: Why Aren't Aliens Talking to Us?. Had I known someone was taking notes and planning to list our recommendations for Fermi Paradox fiction, I would have made a point of mentioning my own Fermi Paradox story, "Decisions" (Analog, January/February 2004, Hugo Nominee 2005), which will soon be reprinted in I Remember the Future.

As it is, though, if you go to the io9 report, you'll find a list of worthwhile fiction to read, including one on the Internet for free – Terry Bisson's "hilarious and chilling" short-short, "They're Made Out of Meat." And I'm amused to see that io9 gave me the last word:

I'm sure you have even more recommendations for Fermi paradox stories, and I urge you to share them with io9 in the comments — but do it quickly. As panelist Michael A. Burstein pointed out, "Wouldn't it be funny if we got a signal from aliens tomorrow and this whole conversation was moot?"

Yes, I'll be home watching the premier of Season 2 of Chuck!!!

Me, the non-TV watcher. I may even make popcorn. ;o)

Well, not right away.  I'm sending out a reminder to everyone out there about my next book signing.  It will be in Boise at Rediscovered Books at 2pm this Saturday.  A fellow author in Barren Worlds, Ken McConnell, will also be there, talking about his story, "Ocherva", while I talk about "Tiger's Eye View."  Any of you with friends in Boise, please spread the word!  If you live in the Boise area, hope to see you there!

On a down note, our lodging plans for the trip got tanked.  We were making arrangements with some friends who live in the Nampa/Caldwell area to stay with them.  Well, then we get this email from said friend, saying her parents asked if they could stay at the house that weekend.  Naturally, we said we'd find a hotel room.  Kind of a bummer, because we were really looking forward to seeing some good friends, but no WAY were we going to put out the parental units!  So instead, we're going to try to meet up with them for breakfast or something.

Now about the title:  I am more enthusiastic about the impending baby than before.  I just figure everyone (including me, sometimes) will be getting tired of reading about the pregnancy.  The first pregnancy, I gave everyone in earshot the literal play by play, whether they wanted it or not.  I'm trying not to do that this time!

My son had to stay home yesterday.  In the morning, he was complaining of his head and tummy hurting.  No problem.  He never threw up, so okay.  Well...later that afternoon his fever decided to spike to 101.3!  As a result, we missed Grandma and Grandpa's anniversary dinner.  Today he's a bit better.    Fever's down, so we might try to see some neighborhood kids today.

Have great day, everyone!

My first exposure to the tarot came via The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, a Don Knotts film that I enjoy to this day. A small town ladies' occult society, sort of a Golden Dawn-of-Mayberry, goes around waving their hands and crying out "Tarot, Tarot, Solomon!" when word gets out that Knotts' character has supposedly encountered a ghost.

I was probably all of six or seven, but I went to my folks' encyclopedia and started looking. Between homonyms and poor listening comprehension, it took me a while to figure out what those women were so excited about. When I figured it out, I suspect I said the early-80s version of "meh" and went off to watch He-Man battle Skeletor.

Some years later, my mother the I Ching devotee went through a brief tarot phase. There were a few decks around the house, a couple books, and I poked through them, but they didn't capture my interest. That was around junior high, when I was both immersed in Lovecraft and becoming more aware of girls and sex. (At the time I didn't know about weird erotica and didn't think to combine the two, all the better for mankind's sanity.)

Fast forwarding through high school and my twenties, I read about various things mystical and divinatory, reading 1999-era websites, buying a couple tarot decks, but never got much into them. For a while I was deeply into dreams, Jung, lucid dreaming, etc., but I eventually decided I'd rather write fiction for two hours a day than struggle to recall half-remembered dreams in the hope of extracting wisdom.

Recently I wrote a story that involved a guy who was, for a variety of reasons, spending a lot of time reading tarot cards. I poked around online, asked for help from some of y'all, and got what I needed for the story.

Still curious, I kept reading about tarot, deck reviews, history, etc. This was partly spurred by something John Gardner says in On Becoming a Novelist about ways to get to understand people in all their strange psychology. One possibility he suggested was tarot.

Last week I sat down at my desk, thinking about what sort of story I could tell based on a spread. I thought up a layout that could represent the elements and plot of a story, and did my first reading. And what do you know?



It was, in fact, as if the scales fell from my eyes. As I looked at what was laid out^*, studying card meanings^** in a book, thinking about how I reacted to the images, the outline of a story came to mind. Better yet, it incorporated elements from a couple stories that I couldn't bring to completion earlier this year. I'm still writing, so I'm not going to engage in too much pre-hatch counting of chickens, but damn! If this story turns out as well as I hope it will, there will be more tarot-as-story-aid in the future.

For those of you wondering about the layout I made up, it's like this. Top Row (Character/Conflict), left to right: protagonist, protagonist's view toward the antagonist/central conflict, antagonist/central conflict's view of the protagonist, antagonist. Bottom Row (Plot), left to right: opening, initial difficulties, source of resolution, tying up loose ends, conclusion/climax. The story has developed into something rather different than it began as, but I'm assuming that's a good thing.

This process was useful for giving me a framework to hang lots of things on that have been coming up in stories recently (some completed, some not). If the tarot is, more or less, an arbitrary symbol set, then it gives my subconscious room to fiddle around and slap my writing questions and concerns into the niches where they can fit comfortably.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Yes, there are a lot of wands. It was a well-shuffled deck. The wands did, however, lend themselves to a story about... well, let's say they fit.
** I was using the Universal Waite deck, which is relatively standard and seemed like a good starting place. I understand there are big debates about imagery, Rider-Waite v. non Rider-Waite, etc., etc. I have a few other decks around, some older, some purchased more recently. I have a Marseilles, but that's more for historical reasons than anything else. Revelations caught my eye for the evocative, colorful artwork, and I suspect it may become a regular for thinking about fantasy stories. The Deviant Moon is entirely appropriate for most of my dark fantasy stories. Both the Revelations and Deviant Moon decks seem to suit me.

Three days into the first week of vacation and this is the first time I get to sit down and write. 

I've been taking an hour since Monday to walk.  One hour walking is 24 points (according to my neighbour). 24 points is two bananas and an orange.  I actually am enjoying the walking thing.  I've managed to puzzle through some problem points on my hay(na)ku novel, and I am feeling a lot fitter.  

I realize I missed the physical activity and the outdoors. Thankfully, my hayfever seems to be at rest right now.  

You'd think I would have more time to write...*coughs and blushes*

"Fish" did well in the Liberty Hall Flash Challenge, but whether it's going to be a story I'll rewrite to market is a big question.  I think it might be too much like a joke.  Still it was great fun. I shall try to flash this coming weekend. But I'm not promising anything...it can get hectic around here.

I am looking forward to hubby's three weeks of vacation. That means someone else can babysit while I write <g>.  

Gud Magazine has a pre-launch buzz contest going for Issue three. Issue three includes stories by tlmorganfieldand keesa_renee. This makes me really cheerful as it's been sometime ago since I last read anything written by Keesa, and T.L. Morganfield is one of my fave authors. Three days to go before the contest ends...so go spread the buzz.

Follow the yellow brick linky...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanov_claimants

Interesting. And, at the same time, sad.

I should explain, for people that don't know me well, that I'm a Russian history nerd and have been for, oooh, about 20 years. It's my thing (girl's gotta have a thing ;) ) My very first published story. back in about 2004, was a historical specfic concerning the possible fate of the two missing Romanov children. Now I find I very nearly had it right...

So I'm going to share this with the world. It was published in Gorlan Magazine in March 2004, all copyrights etc belong to me, and if you're going to circulate it make damn sure my name's attached and you make no profit from it ;) The reason I'm sharing is, hell, RL has trashed my theories so I'm never going to sell it again, but it's fun to speculate on what could have been...


( The Woods of Ekaterinberg )

So, my ending was less gloomy than real life. Sometimes fiction makes the world a more shiny place.

It's good to know they'll all be together again, in the end.

About a week ago I purchased what I like to call a "faux-skine" pocket-sketchbook: in other words, an off-brand Moleskine knockoff called Pen & Ink. It's actually a really nice sketchbook, and I'm having a lot of fun with it, thanks in part to the inspiring posts in this community I stumbled across. Here's a few of my sketches:

( Art Under Cut )

21-day R from Dreams and Nightmares. Succinct: "Alas, this is not what I seek." I am amused.

We have apparently managed to dig a deep scratch into our CD of Lego Indiana Jones, to the point that the Wii won't recognise it (don't ask me how we managed this, I have no idea). Brand-new CD (3-4 weeks old, not a whole lot of play).

Arg.

Today, people, I am very sad.  Would you like to know why?  Well, it's because I am a happily married woman and I cannot, therefore, go running after a true paragon of manly virtues: Dmitri The Leaver of Douchey Phone Messages.  What a peach!  What a prize!  Oh, cruel fate, for me to have found my true love before I even knew such a person existed!  I weep bitter bitter tears!

Elegant women are rare!  I wish I were elegant!  Alas!  I am not.

From missmonstermel .  Who just gave my entire afternoon a boost.

More Dmitri-related Fun:

The Gawker Posts

Jezebel's Take on the Tale (includes transcript!)

The Re-enactment - Part One and Part Two

 Recently I have had the opportunity to review a new anthology out by Noriliana Books edited by Mike Allen, Clockwork Phoenix.  If you would like to see how impressed an average reader can be, take a look under the friend's page space-saver!

( Story thoughts behind the cut... )

Clockwork Phoenix.  It was hard put for me to find anything not a winner in this fantastic debut anthology.  Indeed, there are a few stories here that I have no problem recommending, and have noted so at the story above.  And as a comment about the package as a whole - I have noticed one interesting thing, the person that these stories are written in.  You won't find many instances of the typical 1^st person story-telling in here.  No, whether it is from a calculated design for mood or from a personal taste of the editor, Mike Allen, the style of the prose serves admirably to set the mood and tone of the book. 

 

I reviewed this from an emailed rtf ARC, missing out on the magic of holding it in hand. As such, I seriously plan to get this book and would highly recommend anyone who loves the surreal, the mood and the imagery, of modern magic realism to do the same.  It would be a plus for any collection.

 

So, next year I'm up for re-election for Town Meeting.

I got an email today noting that as part of the festivities for the opening of the new New England Comics in New Bedford (that's three "new"s), Batman and Spider-Man will be appearing at the store on Sunday.

So...

Would it be a good idea or a bad idea for me to go the New Bedford store, get a photo of myself with Batman, and use his endorsement in my 2009 campaign?

As 530nm330hz suggests, maybe I should toss a coin...

Nomi and I went to Readercon this past weekend, and we saw a lot of friends and had a good time. I showed off the Advance Reading Copy of my book, and people seemed impressed. I myself am still trying to wrap my brain around it.

I was blown away by "The Dark Knight."

Josh and family have arrived safely in Eugene, Oregon, and I've got plenty more pictures in the gallery I devoted to their trip.

I'm very much enjoying my last two publishing classes. The best part of my class in book marketing and publicity is that it became an independent study, so the instructor is making my homework assignments practical. For example, my current assignment is to create the press kit for my own book. Given that I was going to need to do this anyway, I'm killing two birds with one stone, as the old saying has it.

I continue to enjoy working with Apex Publications. They're a breeze to work with, and have given me a bigger window into the process of publishing my collection than any other company would have.

I've gotten two blurbs for my book already, and I'm humbled and delighted by what Stanley Schmidt and Robert J. Sawyer have said about me and my work. I'll share them later.

I'm hoping to sell more pre-ordered copies of the hardcover, and would welcome any thoughts on how to encourage more sales.

My publishing classes are keeping me busy every night this week, and I suspect I'll be very busy over the weekend as well.

Sleep? I remember sleep. It would be nice to experience it again one day.

70-day personal rejection from Asimov's.

Reasons that allowed you to divorce your wife in the Tang dynasty:
#9: if she fell incurably ill.

Nice.

Though I do note that they had the right to divorce for reasons of incompatibility between spouses. Pretty modern, that, though I have no idea how often it was applied.

Also, those princesses of the Tang dynasty were pretty scary: "We have a little power? Cool, let's raze entire districts and build ourselves lavish palaces" (there's a particularly hilarious anecdote about one of them walking into the house of a disgraced chief minister and announcing she wanted to buy it--about ten milliseconds before her crew of workmen burst in and started dismantling entire halls under the horrified gaze of the inhabitants).