Her · Grace's · Court

I finally managed to get the spacing right on my site, and so I've made the page visible to the world. If you are interested (or just bored), the first chapter of THE LOYAL SWORD is right here.

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Behold, the blurb for the book (which comfort_soup and I worked on together):

Annelise has a problem with princes: they show up at the worst possible moments, turning her life upside down. After the first one gets her exiled from her homeland and into enemy territory, drinking herself into oblivion sounds like a pretty good idea. But when she’s forced to save a second prince from an early death in an alley, alcohol isn’t an option anymore.

Suddenly, she’s dressing like a man, becoming the suicidal prince’s bodyguard, and fighting off rumors that she’s a spy. Not to mention the strange marks that priests keep leaving on her wrist, the dragon living underneath the temple who’s waiting to make a meal of her employer, and the impending war between her homeland and the enemy kingdom.

But all that pales in comparison to the way her skin begins to glow, and she discovers that saving a prince, saving a kingdom, and saving what’s left of her pride aren’t the only things that she’s meant to do.

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Please note the time for critiques has passed. Offenders will be tarred and feathered, drawn and quartered, and hanged by the neck until dead -- all at the same time. There will also be public mockery for not being able to follow instructions. (That said, if you find a typo, editing artifact, or formatting error, please let me know so I can correct it.)

I'm only posting the first chapter of this, but I'm planning on putting first chapters of a couple other projects, too. You can see the list on the writing projects page, and if you have a preference of which comes next, I'll make it happen. :)

Why I love my husband - reason #73276




He calls me eye candy.


After 16 years of marriage, 4 kids, 50 extra pounds he thinks I'm beautiful.


I am so damned lucky to have him.

41. Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat (Lynne Jonell).

From the flap:

Emmy was a good girl. At least she tried very hard to be good.

She did her homework without being told. She ate all her vegetables, even the slimy ones. And she never talked back to her nanny, Miss Barmy, although it was almost impossible to keep quiet—some days.

Honestly, Emmy really was a little too good.

Which is why she liked to sit by the Rat.

The Rat was not good at all...

If that makes you smile, read this book.  You will like it.

If not, you have no soul.  Sorry!

It's been a while since I posted any book reviews. Here are the recent standouts, with a question for you at the end.

Tiger Moon by Antonia Michaelis. I soooo loved this book--except for the ending, which I'll talk about in a minute. It's a story-within-a-story. Raka expects to die at the hands of her new husband, and whiles away the nights before this happens by telling the story of a thief named Farhad (what is it about thief characters??) who must become a great hero and then save an entrapped princess. Raka is brave and fierce; her story interrupts the told Farhad story periodically as her doom grows closer. Farhad's story, as he moves from street thief to hero, is full of adventure and fun, and also terrific character development. My problem with the novel is with the ending. Stop here if you don't want a spoiler. The two stories intertwine. Two things happen. One is that Raka finds her own hero, who is a poor substitute for the wonderful Farhad. And two is that Farhad dies. This is okay for him--he's a Hindu and believes he's getting a good deal. But for the reader who doesn't participate in that belief system, it's a terrible disappointment and an unsatisfying ending.

The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan. I have a couple of quibbles with this one, but on the whole I loved it. First thing, does anybody like the lurid cover? Seeing it in person, I almost didn't buy the book. But I'm glad I did! You know the story--two brothers, pursuit by demon-using magicians, etc. The writing is fluid, and I so appreciated and enjoyed the touches of humor, especially the Jamie character (you guys can have your team Alan and your team Nick. I'm all for Jamie). Without the humor, the darkness and angst would have been too much for me. A couple of scenes felt over-chatty to me, especially the ending, but again, I don't read for angst but for action. The twist ending--which I'm not going to spoil!--was a total surprise to me. I loved how it recast the characters' relationships with each other and explained so much about the protagonist's actions and emotions. Brilliant. On the whole, this is a terrific read, and I will eagerly seek out the sequel. There is a sequel, right?

King of the Screwups by K.L. Going. I have some quibbles with this one, too, but I did enjoy it quite a lot. Liam is beautiful and popular, and he has major father issues and a problem with self-sabotage, so he's sent away to spend his senior year living in a messy trailer owned by his "Aunt Pete," a musician. The book is about Liam figuring out who he is and realizing that he's actually been suffering from emotional abuse for years, that he's not the giant screw-up he thinks he is. I really enjoyed that part of the story, particularly Liam's engagement with fashion and his fearlessness about being a straight boy who loves clothes and loves to make other people look good. I also appreciated his Uncle Pete and the other guys in Pete's band. Pete has his own arc, his own struggles with having this kid dropped into his life. What I didn't like so much is that Liam is pretty much a Gary Stu character--he's so beautiful and charming that everybody likes him instantly. Some of his attempts to be not-popular seemed to me more like farce than realistic fiction. On the whole, though, a good read with some surprising emotional depths.

And finally:

The Boy Book and The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart. Oh, how I love and adore Roo! These books are smart and funny, and in the third book, The Treasure Map of Boys (July 28), my money is totally on Hutch, assuming his skin condition clears up over the summer. Trust me on this one--Hutch doesn't care about outdoor pot gardens; he's been there for Roo all along. Lockhart is my new go-to person for YA voice. She nails it. This author is a new discovery for me, and I keep trying to get a copy of The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, but it keeps eluding me. One day you will be mine, book!

#

So what about you? What have you been reading lately? What do you recommend?

So let me start off by saying that my health insurance carrier has actually been quite supportive through the cancer experience thus far. Until the last few days, I've experience zero chain yanking and a great deal of positive, useful support from them, largely in the person of my cancer case manager.

However, last week I got a coverage letter telling me my oncologist is out of network for my PPO plan. This triggers an entirely separate deductible process, wherein I have to pay the first $2,500 for out of network coverage, after which I then pay 30% of charges instead of my usual flat co-pay. That would mean another $2-3,000 out of my pocket this fall, given where everything is going.

Finally got through to my case manager yesterday to discuss this. She verified they had no listing for my oncologist, and strongly advised me to find another oncologist. Long discussion about networks and coverage. My case manager was being as helpful as she could be within insurance company rules, but from my point of view, this whole thing is madness. They're already preparing to spend about $250,000 treating me, and they're barfing on $2,500 or so worth of doctor bills. Starting with the $279 sitting on my desk right now.

I called the clinic at my primary hospital after I got off the phone with my case manager, to explore it from their end. For example, could they rebill, etc. The medical administrator there was quite surprised to hear that my oncologist was out of network. According to her, all the doctors at the clinic are in network with my carrier under a master contract. Long discussion about networks and coverage. Much frustration on my part.

This gal is a Hero of the Revolution, so far as I am concerned, because she took my information and promised to call the health insurance company from the provider side and work through this. Still, what a mess.

Health insurance reform isn't just about access, it's about sanity. Or at least it better damned well be. With the exception of almost being killed by ER triage last year (literally), my experiences with the healthcare delivery system have ranged from good to admirable. My experiences with the healthcare finance system have ranged from adequate to surreal.

Also, in discussions with the case manager, we began reviewing the collateral medications associated with chemotherapy. I'm going to be a walking pharmacy before this is all over with. Anti-nausea, anti-inflammatory, anti-anxiety, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum. My biggest concern about the chemo trip is preserving mental acuity, so I'm very dubious about steroidal anti-nausea drugs, as well as anything psychoactive such as anti-anxiety drugs.

Upcoming I have another CT scan on 7/20. That's when we discover whether or not my lungs are a pair of tumor sacks. We'll also validate some of the other data and assumptions about liver and lymph. Unless something unexpected arises from that scan (or unless I have to switch oncologists for insurance reasons), I'll have my chemo prescribing appointment on 7/27. With luck, I can get the Harkonnen heart plug installed quickly enough to go to Worldcon while I'm recovering from that surgery, and begin the chemo when I get back.

I've decided to leave further documentation of my emotional freakouts for another day. Plenty of more-or-less objective detail here now. More as it develops.

Originally published at jlake.com.

[001-003] The 39 Steps
[004-005] Borstal Boy
[006-010] Catwitch
[011-012] David Walliams
[013-013] The Golden Hour
[014-015] Jessie Wallace
[016-029] Spooks
[030-032] North & South
[033-041] Richard Armitage
[042-053] Robin Hood
[054-055] Ultimate Force
[056-064] The Vicar of Dibley

Samples:

( click for more )

R.I.P., Charles N. Brown. We met at several cons, and I enjoyed his company. Raising a glass in the memory of a man who loved the genre as much or more than I did.

So, as you all know, I traveled down to Hackensack, NJ, this past Saturday for a talk at a meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County. The talk went well I thought. Considering that both Shore Leave and Readercon were going on last weekend, I was happy with the number of people that showed up (approximately 20). I started talking, but told them all that they could interrupt with questions to help guide the talk to the stuff they really wanted to know, and they all obliged. The talk went on for 3 hours or so (they make the author work for their sales, they said) with some breaks. I had a blast, and if you're in the NJ area or near Bergen County, I'd definitely recommend that you check out the SFABC and attend a few meetings. It's a well-run and active group, with some pretty cool members. Check out their webpage for their upcoming meetings and events! And thanks everyone who came for a great event!

And one of those events is a multi-author signing in Paramus, NJ. We couldn't get the entire group together from the past multi-author signing, but we came close. Six authors will be gathering at the BORDERS EXPRESS in the Paramus Park Mall for another round of hilarity, donuts, and shenannigans. Here's the info:

MULTI-AUTHOR SIGNING!

AUGUST 1st, 2009
Noon-4pm @
Borders Express
Paramus Park Mall
600 Paramus Park
Paramus, NJ 07652
including:
S.C. Butler; Barbara Campbell
Laura Anne Gilman; Jackie Kessler
Joshua Palmatier; Anton Strout

Stop on by and chat with your favorite author, or come discover a new favorite!

In the revisions department, I've laid Part I of the book to rest, going back and making final decisions on all of the iffy stuff I made note of along the way. So that's done. I've started Part II, getting the first few chapters read, revised, with some iffy stuff made note of as well. I'm hoping to get to the next chapter or two today. I think I'm going to back to make some decisions on the new iffy stuff first though. The list of things to change is slowly being striked out. Still got a majority of it to look at though, since most of the changes come in the second part. But its getting done. Slowly. *grin*

So, off to get my 4 crits on the OWW done for the day for the Crit Marathon, and then on to the revisions!

On my walk this morning, along Big Papio Trail here in suburban Omaha, I saw fireflies. Interesting little suckers, those guys. The precise color and blink pattern varies by species. I know I saw at least two blink patterns. The trail is in a well developed area, along a watercourse greenbelt where I usually hear owls and nighthawks, but there's plenty of artificial light sources nearby. Sometimes I would confuse a distant streetlight flickering through tree leaves with the moving parallax of my own walking pace with a firefly.

Fireflies are like stars, also. At least from a distance. Up close they're inescapable, and when one would flash very near to me, my eye would follow it automatically for the foot or two of flight before the flash went off. Farther away, they were easier to see out of the corner of my eye. The best way to spot them was to gaze ahead, unfocused, as I followed the trail, and pay careful attention to my peripheral vision.

In doing this I found another effect. I was perceiving occasional flashes of white light from above. This morning the cloud cover was pretty low and dense, producing a very desultory rain as I walked. I finally decided there was a higher-altitude lightning storm, and I was seeing the flashes masked by the low-altitude cloud deck. But I never would have seen any of that if I hadn't been using the edges of my perception to watch the fireflies.

The creative process is like that. Staring at an idea can be very informative, but it can also overexpose the concept and blind you to deeper, more obscure nuances. Working from the corners, through misdirection and lateral perception, can open you up to things you would never have noticed in the bright light of day. Corners have always been a lot more interesting to me than middles. Early this morning, I learned a little bit more about why.

Originally published at jlake.com.

Tactile Topography — Oooh, cool. (Snurched from Interrupting Gelastic Jew.)

A methodology for creating new ideas — More art blogging, but with specific applicability to writing. (Snurched from Drawn!.)

WHO says new flu "unstoppable", calls for vaccine — Hmm.

The Avastin Paradox — Of interest to me because this is one of the drugs proposed for my upcoming chemotherapy.

When the Fugitive Is a Family Member — Interesting stuff. I find myself pretty hard line on this, in terms of not thinking family members should be sheltered from prosecution.

?otD: Coffee, tea or me?

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7/14/2009
Body movement: 65 minute suburban walk (Big Papio Trail in Omaha)
This morning's weigh-in: n/a (travelling)
Currently reading: Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold

Originally published at jlake.com.

Hey kids! Guess what today is!
It's "le Quatorze Juillet"! July 14th! Bastille Day!
Enjoy the long version of the French national anthem!


Vive la France!

On the other blog: why fight scenes are boring

I seem to be spending a lot of time on short stories recently. That has a reason, but it's also a lot of fun. I just started out another story that's a weird mix of SF and fantasy.

Wizardry in humans is caused by a mutation on the 7th chromosome. While many con artists pay other con artists a lot of $$$ to be given this mutation (with limited success), George is the world's only born wizard. And he doesn't like it. He lives inside a prim-and-proper world called the Conservancy, where life is good but there are strict rules against artificial mutations. George is forever being picked up and treated as a criminal. So he leaves to Conservancy for the wild outside to find the best con artist of all, who can fix his abnormality. But along the way, something goes wrong and he is forced to use his ability. To his shock, he likes it. And the con artist convinces him that it's worth a lot of money, and he'd be stupid to reverse the mutation.
But if he doesn't, his girlfriend won't marry him.

Aha, there is the girlfriend, and she's causing me a bit of a headache in this story. At first, I had her cast as the evil girl waiting behind the door with the rolling pin. But nah, that's cliche. So what if it wasn't really her who made the demand, but through her, her father? Her father, who has a large share in a genetic corporation who are determined to to have any natural wizardry occurring? Or something like that?

• Saturday morning - receive email asking to submit to an anthology with a (VERY) specific theme
  
• Saturday afternoon - ideas beginning to coalesce
  
• Saturday night - quick discussion with Izz about basic idea for plot
  
• Sunday morning - sit down and type out detailed notes for story
  
• Monday - work distractions
  
• Tuesday afternoon - write 3000 word first draft

It's a shame not all stories come out that easily. For example, the one I'm supposed to be writing for jennifer_brozek (waves!) hasn't even reached the ideas phase yet (I'm so stumped on this one! Aargh!). Others, like "Blessed Are The Dead That The Rain Falls Upon", just come out all at once, from initial idea to completed (very long!) draft in a matter of an hour or two. But this one's pretty typical for me; get an idea, think on it for a while, maybe a few days, then write a first draft. And then, down the track, the last draft is unnervingly similar to the first one. That's because I actually write the first twenty or so drafts in my head [1] before I even put pen to paper [2].

And fast is good, at least for me. Fast eliminates that tiny internal editor and grumpypants that tells you something is a bad idea. That schmuck has no idea, trust me.

[1] And be grateful no-one ever gets to read those drafts, trust me...
[2] Figuratively, of course. I rarely even use pen and paper for notes, let alone actually writing!

Cats purr in adorable manner to manipulate humans into feeding them.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8147566.stm

Next up: water wet, etc.

"...they would make a fortune." (Nancy Mitford to Evelyn Waugh, 12 December 1944)

This particular topic is so last week, but I've been meaning to blog it and distractions keep leaping in front of me, damn it.

There has been a flurry of Excitement and Scandal, my friends, over in Merry old England about a certain Antipodean author who has apparently written a novel which is "the kind of sordid wretchedness usually only on offer in the stacks of misery memoirs found in supermarkets, or in the seedy extremes of violent crime fiction."

The novel in question is of course Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan. I already discussed the article in the Guardian/Observer which got rather hot under the collar. But shortly afterwards came this rather appalling piece of bile-filled journalism by Danuta Kean. Note the headline: "Rape, abortion, incest. Is this what CHILDREN should read?"

Nope, the reporter's not going for sensationalism at all there.

Unlike the reporter from the Observer, Ms Kean is at least aware that there is a difference between children's fiction marketed at young children and that which is marketed at teenagers. However, that does not make a great deal of difference in her eyes, because as the article continues, it becomes clear that Ms Kean wants to protect teenagers from all manner of dreadful things they might discover in books, not just the hard-hitting themes of sexual abuse and incest from Margo's novel:

"Take Dame Jacqueline Wilson, whose million-selling books for girls are routinely built around divorce and single parenthood. Another children's favourite, Louise Rennison, fills her own works - with graphic titles like Angus, Thongs And Full- Frontal Snogging - with early fumblings behind the bikeshed and at the school disco."

Yes, that's right. SINGLE PARENTHOOD, PEOPLE. SNOGGING. What will those poor teenagers be exposed to next? (I recently read both these authors recently and I have to say, while they deal with some important teen themes, they are most definitely the fluffier end of the teen fic market, particularly when it comes to language and sexual content.)

The overall tone of the article is that Ms Kean does not want teenagers to be exposed to anything she personally finds distasteful. What *I* find distasteful is that she makes absolutely no acknowledgement of the fact that all of these issues are ones which many teenagers face (or may face) in their real lives. Kissing. Figuring out when/when not to have sex. Divorce. Which bits they may or may not need to shave. Oh, yes, and sexual abuse. Which is a reality, sadly, for many young people.

Let's look at this little gem of a paragraph from Ms Kean of the Daily Mail: "The teenagers I know are not so different to the way we were as children: sure, there are bad apples out there, but behind the gawkiness and monosyllabic grunts are not abused monsters ready to kill their gran, but nice kids who care about the world and regard drugs and sex with suspicion and fear, and swearing as a sign of ignorance. That is why the biggest group of volunteers for charity in the country is teenagers."

Moving right past Ms Kean's rather charming bit of victim-blaming there, whereby abused children are automatically monsters and potential murderers... is she honestly trying to tell us that she knows best for teenagers because she can see inside their minds? They're not talking, but she knows what's going on in their heads and let her tell you, it's all good clean fun.

The very idea that children (and particularly teenagers) should be sheltered from all the possible bad things in the world is disturbing enough to me, but the idea that BOOKS are the first thing you should protect them against? Utterly bizarre. Surely fiction is one of the safest, least threatening way to introduce young people to the bad/dangerous/unpleasant things that are actually out there in the world. It's certainly better than them learning far more salacious and less realistic versions of reality from their friends, or the simplistic versions depicted in film, TV and other media. (also for those teens who don't have great relationships with their parents, finding someone LIKE THEM in a book might be an essential lifeline)

As a parent, I understand wanting to shelter children from the world. But once those children become teenagers, the time for sheltering is well and truly over. Education and information is far more important... if a book is the thing that sparks off a parental conversation about how, for instance, no one should be allowed to touch your body when you don't want them to, even if that person is someone you love, then how is that a bad thing?

In Tender Morsels, Liga is a genuine victim. She has been raised apart from society with only one parent, a man who abuses and controls her. She has been led to believe this is normal. She suffers greatly, to the point where the only world that makes sense to her is one constructed of magic and fantasy - a world where no harm can be done to her or her daughters.

Liga, raised in ignorance and abuse, chooses to over-protect her daughters, to cushion them in a world of no true reality, with no consequence, an idyllic childhood to match all idyllic childhoods. One daughter rebels against this because she has an innate understanding that she is missing out on some of the crunchier realities of real life. Another clings to that lack of reality, and when forced to deal with it in adulthood, is woefully unprepared and vulnerable.

This is a novel with so much to say about abuse and its aftermath, about trust and over-protectiveness and balance, and the wicked simplicity of fairy tales. Ironically, it is a book about parental love and the damage one can unwittingly cause our children, as much as it is a novel about recovery from deep trauma.

Ms Kean says: "But the truth is that when children are exposed to deeply disturbing scenarios in teenage fiction, they are made painfully aware that the world contains cruelty beyond their experience and their imagination." She wants children to be taught that evil is the aberration, not the norm (through books, apparently, though no mention of which books do this without you know, dabbling in those really nasty topics like thong underwear and divorce).

Leaving aside the fact that we are back to discussing "children" again and not the 15+ intended audience, it is clear that it is Ms Kean, and not the mythical children she describes, is the innocent one. The book is disturbing, that much is clear. (a recent review by a teen described it rather beautifully as an "agony-sandwich") It's also a dense, difficult read, which makes it very clear from the beginning what kind of story is being told. Those not ready for it receive plenty of warning from the text itself, and the actual writing of all sensitive material is far less graphic than many excitable reviewers would have you believe.

Margo is currently in the US, with Tender Morsels being celebrated as one of the Printz Honor Books of the year. Not bad for a purveyor of sordid wretchedness. Oddly the US media hasn't had nearly the same issues with the book as the UK papers... mind you, there could still be a 'yet' on the end of that sentence.

And vaguely sci-fi too!

First, photo week rolls on:

The Long Branch Saloon in Luning, Nevada.

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Nextly, I'm signing in two places this week:

Wednesday, July 15th at the University Bookstore here in Seattle, (with Kevin Radthorne) annnnnnnnd...

Saturday, July 18 at Escape Fiction in Salem, OR with all of Team Seattle.

Both should be fun and all manner of fantastic, so appear if you can.

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Thirdly, I got some really, really great news today regarding the future of my adult novels, and I will share that when I can, but now I am off to celebrate most heartily.

Originally published at Caitlin Kittredge.

People who are religious perhaps ought not to read the rest of this post. I won't put it under a cut-tag because the whole purpose here is to exercise my free speech.

This post is a public action against Ireland's new blasphemy law.

I consider Ireland to be my ancestral homeland. I'm only second-generation American. I have a right under current Irish law to declare citizenship.

I like that both my native country and the country of my ancestors are two of the three countries that chucked out the British Empire by force. (Not that I have anything in particular against the British, but driving out an overlord empire while it's still powerful is quite an accomplishment.)

But by passing this law, I have to ask what was the bleedin' point. Why have freedom and self-rule if you're going to be stupid about it?

And so, to anyone reading this in Ireland, I say:

Fuck God. Fuck Mohammad, fuck Yahweh, fuck Buddha, fuck Vishnu and his compatriots. Screw you, Odin, Thor, and Freya. Piss off, Zeus and the rest of your offspring and relatives.

Since I don't have a comprehensive list of all the deities made up by humans over the years, and there are a few religions without specific gods, I also add this: fuck all of you, too.

In fact, if you're not an atheist, I offer a hearty "kiss my fat, white, atheist ass, cocksucker!" to whatever imaginary sky-fairy you do worship.

If you are reading this in Ireland, I offer my condolences for how your government has taken leave of its collective senses. And I thank you for allowing my blasphemous, offensive ones and zeros across your electronic borders. I encourage you to protest this idiotic law and the stupid fuckwits who passed it.

Based on the post by ashamel where it's deemed important to have famous people seen with your book...

( Pics beneath the cut! )

It may appear that I have too much spare time on my hands, but appearances can be deceiving. It's more that I'm doing anything I can to avoid doing what I have to do...

I just read shweta_narayan's March story at Strange Horizons, "Nira and I."

It's very, very evocative, and it makes me think about the importance of bearing witness, and the recent and ongoing struggles in Iran.

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2009/07/young-guns.html

STATUS: I’m off to Washington D.C. tomorrow for RWA. I’ll be blogging but it might be sporadic—just like Friday’s lost entry. Sorry about that. Some days there really are not enough hours to finish everything.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? ME AND MRS. JONES Michael Buble version

Just recently, an aspiring writer sent me this note:

“One thing that worries me is how young many of you agents are. [Young in my forties, I love this person!] I feel so old when I meet these youngsters who will have so much power over my future.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this concern from an aspiring writer. First off, “young” is a relative term. Are we simply referring to agents in their twenties? Yes, that's certainly young but that doesn't mean inexperienced. Agents in their thirties? Well, A thirty-something being in a position of power at any type of company (not just publishing) is not an unusual thing.

Being in my forties, well I guess if the writer is in his or her eightes, I’m certainly a whippersnapper in that context but I don’t think that’s what this writer means.

So I’m going to assume that we are talking about agents in their twenties. And here is what I can tell you. Publishing is a young profession (You have to be young to be willing to take on such low-pay for considerable length of time and do it all potentially in New York City but that’s an aside.)

The young agents I’ve met (which is quite a few) are scary bright. I look back at myself in my twenties and think, “did I have it together like that?”Maybe, I was a college teacher in my twenties so I must have had some act together but boy, I’m not sure I had the focused that a lot of these young agents do.

They are dedicated, passionate, and hard-working. As a writer, I would worry less about age and more about these young guns’ reputation, commitment to your work, etc. These young agents know the young editors who will be running the publishing houses in about 10 to 15 years (and I’m not kidding here).

So keep that in mind. And of course, what I’ve said above can’t possibly apply to every young agent but I’m willing to bet that if the above doesn’t apply, those youngsters will be weeded out before they have an opportunity to build their own client lists.

“Old timer” Janet Reid raves about “youngster” agent Barbara Poelle on her blog. On mine, let me rave about two young agents who have also got it going on—Holly Root and Emmanuelle Alspaugh.

If you haven’t checked them out yet, maybe you should.

I've passed the (theoretical) half-way mark in my first draft. This past two days, I've felt as if it's losing direction, so I've been going through past scenes and and looking for ways of finding my way again. I've found a few surprises I missed during the writing process, and now know exactly where to go next. It's exciting and I just want to sit here all day writing until it's finished. Every spare moment is spent either tapping at the keyboard or writing in my head. First drafts have never felt so magical before...

A little bit of unedited wordage: ( Read more... )

I know that part isn't news to people. Not satisfied with his many attempts to make things like abortion and emergency contraception more traumatic/difficult/inaccessible to women, Mr Abbott's latest genius idea is to create a new opt-in form of marriage which can only be broken through proof of fault. Possibly significantly, the only examples of 'fault' given are adultery or proven drunkenness.

We all know Mr Abbott is living somewhere in the early (pre-Beatles, pre-Pill) 1960's in his head, but is that really the best he can do? This is the 21st century. Let us not forget 'internet porn addiction' or, you know, SPOUSAL ABUSE.

By all means, that's the highest priority in our society right now - people who once had a loving relationship now choosing to live apart without anyone being publicly shamed/blamed/proven wrong.

I do kind of love how the Age chose to cover the story, though: How is this going to affect the Private Detectives?

Personally I found Julie Bishop's comments most interesting: "What Tony's doing is putting forward, I gather, his personal views on a particular matter and we'll debate them if he wants them to become part of our policy."

When have Tony's personal views on particular matters not affected his ideas on political policy? Why is this man still being listened to?

I'll be in San Francisco next week for some more medical appointments in connection with my cancer. Since I'm finding it logistically impossible to schedule time with people, I thought I'd throw one of my group dinners.

On Monday 7/20 at 6pm, calendula_witch and I will be at Kezar Bar & Grill, at the corner of Cole and Carl in Cole Valley. Exact address:

900 Cole St
San Francisco, CA 94117-4316
(415) 681-7678

This is just off the N-Judah street car line, among other things.

This is an open dinner. That means if you're reading this, you're welcome to come, whether we're old friends, nodding acquaintances or total strangers. If you think you'll be there, please let us know. That way we can warn the restaurant.

Originally published at jlake.com.