Jun 25 2016

Busy!

Rosemary

Still here, but:

Busy!  Too busy to post at the moment…

So, in lieu of me saying something amusing or insightful or brilliant or entirely delusional, here’s something cool to look at:

You’ll want to go fullscreen.

BigFly is a French production company that uses drones to capture amazing images.   Here’s their website.

(Thanks to BoingBoing for pointing me there.)

Right.  Back to the task at hand…

 


Jun 17 2016

Seen

Rosemary

I managed to get out to the woods today…

IMG_1156

The mountain laurels are in bloom.

In choosing which path to take when I came to a crossing, I just headed for the mountain laurels.

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At first I just saw a few bushes here and there…

I heard a woodpecker, too; possibly the same Pileated Woodpecker that I spotted here last week.

The further I went, the more I saw.

The further I went, the more I saw.

Also spotted this:

In grade school, we were taught to call these indian pipes.

In grade school, we were taught to call these indian pipes.

This plant has no clorophyl.

I also saw this fallen tree:

I have no explanation for this.

I have no explanation for this.

It’s a fallen tree.  With a hole in it.  Why, I don’t know.  The hole is about eight inches by four, and goes straight through the tree.

It was a good walk of about an hour.  Followed by another walk later, from my office to the post office, because hey!  I work in a town, and the post office is walking distance.  About twenty minutes to and another twenty back.  Can’t say I didn’t get my exercise!  I’m well over 10,ooo steps, many of them directly uphill!

I also sent out the final Con or Bust paperbacks to the winning bidders.  Both in Texas, by coincidence.  Took care of a bunch of business -type chores, and cleared the decks for hitting the keyboard hard tomorrow and Saturday.

Sunday, it’s the Genrettes meeting, and I’m all a-twitter about what they’re going to say about that chunk of my prose that they’ve been reading…

 


Jun 9 2016

You know how they say that computers are going to replace us all?

Rosemary

Well, the script for this short science fiction film was written by a neural network.

(You should go full-screen.)

I don’t know about you, but I it looks like my job is safe….

(Brought to my attention by the io9 website.)


Jun 3 2016

Random updates not all about me

Rosemary

I had a few delays this week due to general life-type chores.  I’ve missed my walks in the woods for several days (which I have discovered makes me sorta cranky).   But I’m back in the saddle, and typing away… and the weekend is nearly upon us.

Current fleurs on desk

Current fleurs on desk

I had the fun of sending out a serious chunk of prose to the Fabulous Genrettes, my writer’s group, for analysis and dissection at our next meeting.  Naturally, I just want them to tell me how brilliant I am!  But, being a pro, I’m willing to be told that I’m only mostly brilliant, and that the prose (ahem) desperately needs some loving care, attention, and bringing-to-heel (AKA rewrites).

Other than that there is, at the moment, little to report on the writing front — largely because I don’t generally blog about the content of what I’m working on, and I don’t post  word counts (as explained in this ancient entry from before I had an office and while I still had a day job).  But I am at it, and looking forward to the weekend, which is prime writing time for me, when I have the entire building to myself.

I’m still currently reading Ada Palmer’s Too Like the Lightning, but I always do have trouble reading fiction when I’m also writing fiction, so I have paused for the moment.  Ada’s book both deserves and requires attention; I don’t want to read it sloppily, and I realized that I was doing so — so I stopped.  I’ll get back to it in a bit, when I’m at a good pause-for-a-breather point in my own work.

I’ve also picked up Neil Gaiman’s The View from the Cheap Seats,  which, being non-fiction, doesn’t hijack my fiction-processing faculties.  It includes the text to the famous “Make Good Art” speech, always an inspiration to me.

Meanwhile, Google alerted me that E.C.Ambrose mentioned the Steerswoman series in a blog post on maps… and that reminded me of Ambrose’s own books, and the fact that that her blog is great resource for people interested in the writing process.   There’s all sorts of excellent advice on many subjects relating to writing, like: The uses of location, of detail, suspense, and more.  She knows whereof she speaks and expresses it well.  And she’s taught at the Odyssey Writing Workshop.  All good reasons to check out both her blog and her books.

Lastly: Do not forget about the Con or Bust fundraising auction!    Bidding closes on Sunday at 4PM Eastern time, and there are lots of SF/F- related books objects and memorabilia available, and jewelry and handicrafts. Like a steampunk guitar pick-guard!  Seriously, where else are you going to find one of those?

Photo May 24, 6 40 21 AM