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By: Arbordale Publishing,
on 7/29/2016
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Did you escape to the beach for a little summer vacation? We did and brought home a few souvenirs from our walks on the beach. Now that our prize shells are sitting on a shelf collecting dust, it’s time to put them to use with a fun craft idea.
Shell Animals! This is a perfect activity for a rainy day or before a trip to the zoo. You can get as creative and detailed as you want while learning about different traits of the animal that you want to create.
We kept the supplies simple – of course, shells are the number one ingredient, although we would suggest some larger ones for young children, ours are a little smaller than we would have liked. To decorate your shells you will need, some construction paper, scissors, markers, paint or both. You can also add googly eyes and pipe cleaners for more detail. We made a peacock, a tiger, and our bear came in the perfect color straight from the ocean!
Share your favorite shell creatures with us; tag @arbordalekids on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Tumblr! We will send a matching book to our top favorites!
By:
Roberta Baird,
on 5/25/2012
Blog:
A Mouse in the House
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“Nine o clock… Dad comes home today!”
As he waited, he listened to the sound of thunder and watched as the raindrops landed and then joined together in a trail that raced to the bottom of the window pane. A year is a long time to wait!
All fear faded away when he saw his Dad, dressed in army green, spotted with the weather, open the front gate and smile as he ascended the stairs.
Even dogs deserve to be dry.
More watercolors on my
blog
Would you not be lucky if umbrellas fall from the sky when it rains.
I did manage to pull this one off in about an hour while the
children went out. Yay!!!!!! This is a part of a series of fabric
illustrations that I am working on.
I've worked up these two sketches for this week's prompt. Do the characters look consistent? Overall, how does it look to you? Anything off? I'd like to do a good job on these so I can use them in my portfolio, so any feedback would really be appreciated! :)
Sleeping in until almost 9AM
Eating a most decadent breakfast of chocolate and vanilla ice cream sprinkled with Trix cereal
Reading books
Giggling at mindless but funny cartoons
Reading books
Marveling at the darkening skies, rumbling thunder, flashes of lightning, and brief downpours that cycled all day and into the evening
Eating lunch at 2 in the afternoon while still in our PJ's
Making up stories with whatever toys we can get our hands on at the moment
Having snacks with no "it has to be a healthy one" prerequisites
Getting dressed and playing made up games out in a little bit of rain with two lacrosse sticks and a cheap plastic air-filled ball
Coming in and putting the PJ's right back on
Playing card games
Gathering soft blankets and cuddly toys to surround us when the thunder got a little too loud
Telling funny stories
Telling potty jokes
Telling more potty jokes
Reading books
Playing lovely songs on the piano
Writing stories and comics
Making art projects
Giggling during dinner when we saw a neighbor grilling her dinner on her deck in the rain
Staying up late
Laughing through bedtime stories
Playing 20,000 questions to stretch bedtime out just a little longer
Snuggling off to sleep
I hope it rains tomorrow, too...
By:
Justine Larbalestier,
on 3/6/2008
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Justine Larbalestier
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Thanks for all the deeply smart and thoughtful comments to yesterday’s question. You lot are awesome.
Youse lot have gotten me thinking muchly on the topic. On the one hand, I am a fan of many writers I’ve never met, like, Denise Mina, Meg Cabot, Geraldine McCaughrean, Walter Mosley, Megan Whalen Turner, Peter Temple and would probably embarrass myself by breathless gushing all over them if we were ever to meet. On the other hand, I’m a working writer who knows a lot of working writers and knows that we’re not particularly different from everyone else. (Well, except for Maureen Johnson . . . )
I put it like this to Holly Black:
It does not surprise me in the slightest that Karen Joy Fowler and Ursula Le Guin are friends. But it surprises me HUGELY that I am making a living as a writer and therefore I have many writer friends. I constantly have to pinch myself. How on Earth did I get here? Please don’t let anyone take it away!
That fear is real: many writers don’t make a living at it for their whole lives. It takes a long time for most of us to get published (took me close to twenty years) and then once you are published there’s no guarantee that your books will keep selling. Styles of writing go out of fashion. So do genres.
Your comments were all so useful, I thought I’d respond in more detail:
Danica’s point is a really good one: “I guess we (meaning non-writers) don’t always think of publishing as an industry and don’t realize that most writers must be connected somehow.”
That’s so true. I remember the first science fiction convention I went to back in 1993. I was astonished to see all these writers and editors I’d heard of in the one place. All of them clearly knew each other and were, in fact, a community. A pretty big community that consisted not only of those whose living was directly tied to the publishing industry (writers, editors, publishers, publicists etc) but also readers and fans and a handful of students and scholars. Long before I sold a single short story I was becoming friends with the likes of Ellen Datlow, Samuel R. Delany, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, and Terri Windling. It was astonishing.
That community—of science fiction people— is the oldest genre community I know of and has roots that go back to the late 1920s. There are also romance communities, crime fiction communities, YA communities etc., and to a lesser extent mainstream lit fic communities (though I suspect that the easy access of fans to pros is not so strong in the lit fic world).
Tole said: “Perhaps it’s not so much that we are surprised that you know each other, as much as amazed at how lucky you are to not only have the talent and perseverance to write a novel, but that you have an amazing set of friends as well.”
I am also amazed by that. I mean, yes, I said above that we’re not that different from everyone else, but my writer friends understand the ins and outs of this weird job we have better than anyone else. No matter what questions I have there’s someone I know who’s been through it before and can help me out. “My book’s been remaindered! Does that mean my career is over?” “Barnes & Noble aren’t stocking my book! Does that mean my career is over?” “How do you write action scenes?” “What’s the best writing software?” and so on and so forth. When I have a success that’s hard to explain to people outside the industry (my book is on the BBYA) my YA writer friends get it and can celebrate with me and vice versa.
Having peers is a wonderful, wonderful thing. And when your peers are as talented and amazing as mine. Well, it’s pinching yourself time.
JS Bangs made two excellent points:
1) People think of authors as solitary geniuses scribbling away and living on water and crusts of bread, without any contact with others of their kind.
2) It feeds people’s fear that the publishing industry is all about who you know.
1) There are writers like that. There are definitely working writers who live a long way from their peers and don’t ever meet them at conferences and convention and so on. But I think they’re getting rarer. The internet has allowed more and more people in the same industry to be in contact with each other and break down that isolation. Is very good thing!
2) Oh, yes, that old bugbear. Pretty much every industry from medicine to the building industry to agriculture has a certain amount of who-you-know going on. The world runs on personal relationships. What most people who are paranoid about the publishing industry don’t get is that an unpublished writer knowing some editors may get them read but guarantees nothing beyond that. I’ve had editor friends since 1993. A decade later I sold my first novel.
I know plenty of writers who started selling before they’d met a single person in the industry.1 Knowing people in the industry means that it’s easier to figure out how it works—you have friends you can ask—but it doesn’t mean anything if you have no talent.
Camille expanded on the solitary point: “I think, too, it’s because you can write from anywhere. With lawyers and professors and the like, generally you have to congregate in a place to get anything done. (Less now, with the Internet, but still, predominantly people go TO work.) You HAVE to physically associate with your colleagues. Writers can live anywhere and yeah, somebody above said we think of writing as being a solitary exercise.”
That’s true. Part of my knowing so many writers has to do with my living in two very big cities: Sydney and NYC. And in both cities the writers in my genre have made an effort to make contact. Because so many of us write alone, I think the need for community is much stronger than those who work with people in their profession every day.
Of course, there are still writers out there who don’t know other writers and aren’t part of any writing communities.
Herenya: “I think it’s because we know who these other writers are. If I started talking about who my friends are, people would look at me blankly because none of my friends have done anything to warrant that sort of recognition (yet!) But you talk about your friends, and I think ‘oh, yes, I know who they are, I was reading one of their books yesterday.’ It’s a bit like the same sense of surprise you get when you find you and a friend / acquaintance ‘know’ someone in common, but with the awe factor involved, because we only know them through their writing and not personally.”
That makes a lot of sense to me and jibes with my own experience. The awe factor is nicely summed up by Bill: “Myself, I’m still so amazed that certain books exist at all (say, Stranger in a Strange Land) I can’t rationally believe that it was typed by hand by a human being named Robert Heinlein. Books, especially books that change your life, are inherently mystical objects to those of us on the receiving end.”
Even though I write books myself, I still feel that way about the books that move me. There is something fundamentally mysterious about the process of creating (no matter what you create). I think that’s why so many writers struggle to explain where they get their ideas.
On that note, I should probably get back to doing some creating of my own.
I keep getting letters from people being spun out that I know Maureen Johnson and Holly Black and Margo Lanagan and Libba Bray and Garth Nix and Cassandra Clare and a bunch of other writers. I’m trying to figure out why they’re so amazed.
My parents are scholars; they know heaps of other scholars. I’m pretty sure that lawyers know other lawyers, dentists other dentists, hairdressers and bricklayers ditto. So what’s so startling about a bunch of YA authors knowing each other?
I ask out of genuine curiosity.
Back to Tally’s World, the guide to the Uglies world first mentioned in this post. I’d like your help with this.
So . . . please use this comment thread to list the following:
1) Slang terms you want defined.
2) Cliques you remember from the books.
And (pretty please) try to limit repetition of the same words! (That means you have to read the earlier comments. But you can always use Find on the thread, you know.)
Sartorias aka Sherwood Smith continues the cranky discussion. Both threads have really excellent comments. Fascinating stuff. If only I weren’t in computer hell, I’d be contributing to said discussions. Once things stop sucking in computerland I’ll plunge in. There’s LOTS more to be said.
In other news I just found out that the Magic or Madness trilogy has now sold to PT Gramedia in Indonesia. I’m particularly stoked about this sale as I studied Bahasa Indonesia for four years in high school. It’s a country I’ve always been fascinated by. For those keeping count—I know I am—the trilogy has now sold to ten different countries.
What 27% of my readers want is for me to write a novel about unicorns versus zombies. And right now I gotta tell you I’m dead tempted cause it wouldn’t require nearly as much research as the current novel.1 So colour me slightly nudged on the zombie v unicorn front. I may have news to report upon said subject at some point in the future. Or not. You never know where my ten-second attention span will take me.
The next most popular options were a ghost story where the ghosts are perfectly aware that they’re ghosts. Which would be just a regular ghost story, right? One day I will write one of those. And then the snowboarding werewolves. Gotta tell you, I don’t see it happening. I’m not oudoorsy and I am particularly against being outdoors in snow. I have no desire to try snowboarding. None at all. And you can’t write about a sport you haven’t tried yourself. Also I’d have to learn all about wolves. Too much research! I am currently against research.
However, what most astonished me about the latest poll was that several of my readers—3% of the total—voted for mainstream realism. Clearly, they were messing with me. There can be no other explanation. Me write non-genre? Are you insane? I have noted all your names and will go after you in my own time. Watch your backs.
Enjoy the new poll. I was feeling random. It happens.
Especially NYPD officers who might be interested in talking to a writer what needs to ask them lots of questions. In particular I need to talk to missing persons and homicide police.
My fingers are crossed.
Update: Thanks, everyone. Since most of my tips are coming via email, I’m turning comments off. If you have helpful info my contact info is here.
By:
Justine Larbalestier,
on 3/1/2008
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Justine Larbalestier
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Another review of First Kiss (Then Tell) edited by Cylin Busby and here’s my story’s mention:
Hands down favorite for sheer grossness (it was so gross it was funny!) was Justine Larbalestier’s “Pashin’”, a tale of her friend’s first kiss.
I am the grossest of them all.
I’ve been toying with writing a novel set in the 1930s and without fail when I mention this I get the following response:
“Why? The clothes were so drab then! Set it in the 1920s!”
Everyone I’ve spoken to seems to think that the Depresssion meant no good clothes were made or worn for an entire decade. I blame Carnivale. My friends have visions of women in faded print dresses and men in worn suits covered in dust.
High fashion in the 1930s was the very opposite of drab. Think of the 1930s movies of Kate Hepburn, Greta Garbo and Carole Lombard. Think about the clothes they wore. Gorgeous! Insane! Over the top!
Yes, most people couldn’t afford those clothes, but that was true in the 1920s, too. Photos of NYC street scenes in the 1920s were just as grey as those of the 1930s.1 And, really, at what point in history have the majority of people worn haute couture?
One of the reasons I want to set my book in the 1930s is because of the sharp contrast between the very rich and everyone else. The clothes speak volumes.
Also the 1930s was the heyday of Madeleine Vionnet who invented the bias cut and totally shaped the look of the 1930s with her (mostly, but not always) slinky clothes. Vionnet is one of my favourite designers.2 She was a genius, who created some of the most beautiful clothes I’ve ever seen.
Photo by Ilan Rubin
This Vionnet dress is from 1938 and according to the New York Times is “made from silk tulle, panne velvet and horsehair with a silver lamé underdress and Lesage embroidery.” I’m betting it was not made in a day.
There were good clothes in the 1930s, okay?
This post comes to you because I casually mentioned that my insomnia had been cured and immediately got an avalanche of letters saying, “Tell! How? I must know!”
So now I tell.
It’s not easy and it doesn’t work for everyone. In fact, the sleep doctor who put me on this regime said that the vast majority of his clients cannot stick to it and thus never find out whether it works for them or not. That’s because it’s very difficult for most people. Especially those with children. On top of that there are a (small) set of people who are addicted to their lack of sleep and the drama of it, but cannot admit that to themselves, and thus cannot undertake a systematic change of their sleep habits.
With this regime you have to change your sleep habits and make them regular, which is really really hard:
- You are only allowed to sleep in bed—no reading or writing or anything else.
- You’re not allowed to sleep during the day. Not even the teeniest, tiniest nap.
- You go to bed at the same time every night and get up at the same time every morning—to start with make them at least five hours apart.
- An hour before you go to bed have a hot bath. This is to raise your core body temp which will then drop in the hour before you go to bed. If you don’t have a bath do some not-too-vigorour exercise for half an hour to raise your temperature. Don’t take a shower because that will wake you up.
- You need to get up in the first hour of dawn and go out and walk or run around in the sunshine for at least 15 minutes. This is to set your something or other. Can’t remember what you call it.
- If you can’t sleep when you go to bed, get up, and do something until you get tired again. Then go back to bed, if again you can’t sleep, get up, and do something else. This can go on until it’s time to get up. You then have to get up cause you’re not allowed to sleep during the day.
There you have it: that’s what cured my insomnia. If you stick to it it’s very likely you’ll be sleeping again.
As I said, though, sticking to it is the hard part. Did I mention how difficult it is?
I was in the ideal situation to try it: I was living with people who were not disturbed by my getting up at 5AM every morning, who were also not disturbed by my being up half the night, and my being shitty all day long when I couldn’t take a nap to cope with not having slept the night before.1
I was also a research fellow at a university where I had no fixed office hours and taught no classes. My duties were to research and write and publish. Undertaking this regime is a lot harder if you work nine to five or even longer hours and if you have children, pets or other responsibilities.
On the other hand, if your insomnia is really bad anyways this regime is probably not a whole lot worse than what you’re already going through.
When I started out I went to bed at midnight and got up at 5AM. The first week I did not sleep more than an hour or two during designated sleeping hours, but after that my sleeping crept up to three, four and then the full five hours. Then I expanded my sleeping to six.
I stuck to the regime for a few more months. First I experimented with not doing the bath thing and was still able to sleep. Then I let myself sleep longer than six hours and miss the dawn walk. When that didn’t affect my sleep I started going to to bed when I felt like it not at midnight every single night. Eventually I was back to normal.
Now—almost seven years later—I sleep fine. I do occasionally have sleepless nights. But they don’t freak me out the way they used to. I’m not afraid of insomnia any more—I’ve had long bouts of it since I was a kid. I now know what to do if an extended bout happens again. It’s a good feeling.
I think part of what used to happen when I was locked into crap sleep patterns was that I’d be so wound up about not sleeping that it made everything worse. I’d lie in bed for hours waiting for sleep to come, getting angrier, and more depressed, and less likely to sleep. At the same time, in a weird way, I was addicted to not sleeping. It felt romantic to be up in the early hours writing when the rest of the world was sleeping. I was convinced that I wrote my best stuff when I couldn’t sleep. I even thought my red eyes and pinched insomnia face were romantic. After all lots of famous writers have struggled with sleep. Writers are meant to be miserable and tortured, aren’t they?
Having learned how to beat my insomnia, I also beat those stupid romantic ideas out of myself. None of my fiction written while suffering from insomnia has ever been published. All my published novels are the product of a happy well-slept author.
What Michelle Sagara and Scalzi said.
Lately I’ve been getting a bunch of people writing me wanting advice on how to blog. They’ve been told that it’s a great way to promote their books but they don’t know how or they want some magic recipe for attracting lots of traffic.
I haven’t answered any of those letters yet. (Hey, I owe my mother emails! No one’s ahead of Jan in the email queue.) But mostly I haven’t answered because I really don’t know what to say. For starters, I don’t get lots of traffic. I average around a thousand hits a day,1 which ain’t bad, but it’s no where near the numbers of the truly popular blogs. Also blogging just to promote yourself? Meh.
For me the least interesting part of having a blog is talking about myself and my books. The most fun is ranting and opinionating about stuff I care about like writing, fashion, politics, cricket, Elvis and quokkas. I have a lot of opinions and I likes to share them. More than that I likes to hear other peoples respsonses to my rants. When I first started pontificating online back in 2003, I didn’t allow comments. Mostly I didn’t like the idea of flame wars or dealing with spam. When I switched to proper blogging in 2005 I quickly realised that the comments were the best part.
Blogging’s a dialogue, that’s one of the many reasons I love it. Part of what’s so awesome about Scalzi’s Whatever and the Nielsen Hayden’s Making Light is that they’re communities. They’re smart, argumentative, witty communities and they’re that way because of the high quality posts and comments they’re responding to. You’re never going to wind up with a community like that if all you can talk about are your books. BORING!!
I always have several posts I’m working on at once. Right now I have one about my friend Lisa Herb’s incredibly inspiring non-profit organisation, Alliance for International Women’s Rights, another about torture inspired by this incredible book, which I read because of Scalzi. Then there’s the long-overdue insomnia post, more stuff on fashion, DNA and race, and answers to reader questions about agents, how to give public readings, and world-building.
But most of my posts are an immediate response to something I saw or read or tripped over that day. It’s occasional writing—as in, inspired by a particular occasion. I see a stupid list of rules for writing so I write my own and so on and so forth.
Keeping a blog has changed how I view the world. Mostly for the good, but sometimes for the bad (ish). You know you might have a problem when your friends ask you, “Are you going to blog this argument?” “Er, no,” you tell them as you mentally erase the post you have just composed in your head. “How could you think such a thing?” Or worse when they ask if you’re going to blog the fabulous evening you’ve just had when that was the last thing on your mind because you was just having fun. That’s one of the many reasons I don’t blog about my life directly.
My advice to would-be bloggers is the same as Michelle Sagara’s and Scalzi’s if it’s not fun, don’t do it.
There are many extremely successful writers who don’t blog. There are some wonderful bloggers whose books don’t sell that well. A successful blog is neither here nor there when it come to a successful writing career.
By:
Justine Larbalestier,
on 2/20/2008
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Enough of you have been emailing to ask why I wants to know about lying and DNA testing and race that I feel I should offer some kind of explanation, or several even:
- I am hard at work building a lie-and-DNA-detecting robot.
- I was bored.
- Maureen Johnson made me ask you cause she’s too lazy to do her own research.
- It’s for my new novel.
- It’s procrastination to avoid work on my new novel on account of Scott took my IM capability away.
- I am distracting myself from certain sad events on The Wire.
- None of the above.
I hope that’s cleared everything up to your satisfaction.
By:
Justine Larbalestier,
on 2/20/2008
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Than you so much for all the excellent liar info yesterday. I’m now halfway through Paul Ekman’s Emotions Revealed: Recognising Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life and finding it extraordinarily useful. Thanks to Gwenda Bond, Jenny Davidson and Malcolm Tredinnick for suggesting him. I’ll be chasing down all the other leads as well. You are all the best research assistants ever!
Since you were all so amazingly helpful on yesterday’s research question I have another:
Last year (I think) I read at least two articles about DNA testing being used in a classroom (or possibly classrooms) in California (but I may have the state wrong) to demonstrate that no one is racially “pure” and, indeed, to promote discussion about what race even is. The test gives the percentage of your DNA that comes from Africa, Europe, Asia or Native America. And many people get results they’re not expecting. The correlation between your skin colour and your DNA is not straightforward.
I have googled any number of combinations and have found articles on DNA testing and race. Even on DNA testing being taught in the classroom, but not on DNA tests being used to talk about race in the classroom.
If any of you can help with this I will be eternally grateful.
The final five of Zombie Idol have been selected. Now all you have to do is go and vote for your favourite.
And not to worry if you had a yen to enter Zombie Idol. This is just round one. The deadline for round two entries is midnight of 21 February (East Coast USA time). To whet your appetite here is Libba Bray’s take on Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown:
In the great scary mall
There were survivors
And some dark halls
And a picture of
The zombie cow jumping over George Romero
And there were three little zombies sitting on chairs
And two dead kittens
And a pair of severed mittens
And a little toy house
And a flesh-eating mouse
And a lost sombrero and pain and a bowl of bloody rains
And an old zombie lady whispering “braaaaiins!”
Goodnight mall
Goodnight sombrero
Goodnight zombie cow jumping over George Romero
Goodnight light
And goodnight shotgun
Goodnight zombie bears
Goodnight chairs
Goodnight dead kittens
And goodnight severed mittens
Goodnight useless locks
And goodnight head-gouging rocks
Goodnight screams
And goodnight bloody rains
And goodnight to the old lady
Whispering, “braaaaiiins!”
Goodnight flesh-eaters
Goodnight hope
Goodnight to the survivors trying to cope
I’m a bit shocked that no one has inserted a zombie into Snugglepot and Cuddlepie or Little House on the Prairie. It’s not too late: send your entry to maureen AT maureenjohnsonbooks.com with the subject header ZOMBIE INSIDE! by 21 Feb. Go forth and zombify!
Vampires are so far ahead of the competition in my latest poll that it’s ridiculous. Fifty-four per cent of my readers believe there are vastly more bad books about them than anything else on the list. Lagging way behind are faerie and witches at 9%. Daikaiju and ghouls got no votes at all.
On the other hand, my last piece of intensive market research found that faery and vampires were the most popular creatures of the night. What to conclude?
- People love vampires when done well, but hate them done badly.
- There’s a massive opening for novels about giant monsters and/or ghouls.
Therefore, my next novel clearly has to be about a (reimagined) vampire who battles giant monsters with the assistance of an army of ghouls. Practically writes itself, dunnit? Though it does cry out for zombies . . .
Which leads to my next poll, which you will find to your right.
My short story in First Kiss (Then Tell) edited by Cylin Busby continues to garner praise for how disgusting it is. Here’s what Bookshelves of Doom has to say:
Justine Larbalestier’s “Pashin’ or The Worst Kiss Ever” was my favorite, hands down. I’ve read it three times (once aloud to Josh), and it made me gag every single time. No, that’s not a typo. I said gag, and I meant it. Literally.
I am so very proud.
Go on, read a copy, you know you want to find out if my story’s as gross as they say. Plus there are some excellent non-disgusting stories in there by the likes of Cecil Castelluci, Shanon Hale, David Levithan, and Robin Wasserman. Not to mention is perfect gift for Valentine’s Day!
The responses to Scalzi’s talking about whether writers should be married or albino or live in igloos or smoke crack have flooded the internets. It’s so out of control I’m not even going to link to any of it. I am merely going to offer my own rules for writing:
- Write.
- Try not to procrastinate too much in your efforts to avoid 1.
- Unless procrastinating really helps with 1.
- If procrastinating to avoid 1. doesn’t help with 1. then never give me your IM handle.
- Don’t even give your IM handle to someone who might give it to me.
- Memorise Matt Cheney’s rules for writing. They totally will ensure that you do lots of 1.
- Split as many infinitives as you can.
- Always add at least one zombie—even if it’s not to your writing.
- Seriously, giving me your IM handle will ensure that you never write again. Don’t do it.
There’s no rule no. 10 because I’m living in a barbaric country that doesn’t have metric. Whatcha gunna do?
So, the whole Maureen Johnson stick a zombie into a novel thing has just gotten heaps bigger. Like heaps. You need to go over there to check out the extent of the bigness. I heard a rumour that there are more than a gazillion entries already! A bazillion gazillion trabillion! So many that’s she’s extended the competition.
And gotten some judges in. Stellar judges such as Meg Cabot, John Green, E. Lockhart, and, um, me.
I’m excited and delighted and slightly nervous. How long does it take to read a bazillion gazillion trabillion entries? Also—Oh. My. God.—I’m a judge with Meg Cabot. I think I’m going to faint.
To forestall the fainting fit here is my little take on the whole thing:
I got him to propose to me yes even though I am a zombie he said yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of zombieness and yes so we are zombies all a zombie’s body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for zombies today yes that was why I ate his brains because I saw he understood or felt what a zombie is and I knew all of his grey matter and pain and I said yes I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes take my brains take my bones take my marrow take my everything and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many zombie things he didnt know of Mulvey’s brains and Mr Stanhope’s brains and also Hester’s and father’s and old captain Groves’s and the grey matter of sailors playing all birds fly and I say yes your brains are the best and the pink and blue and yellow zombie houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar awash with blood and bones where I was a zombie of the mountain yes when I put the blood in my hair like the Andalusian zombies used and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall with his brains calling to me and I thought well as well him as another his brains are bigger and greyer and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower zombie and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my teeth all perfume on his skull and yes and his heart was going like mad and yes brains I said braiiins yes I will Yes.
Please don’t sue me, Joyce estate . . . is parody. Also it just sang out for zombies. Don’t you reckon?
John Scalzi has some excellent advice for writers who are trying to make money out of said occupation. Go forth, read, take notes.
While I strongly agree with most of his advice, I have issues with two of his points:
3. Marry (or otherwise shack up with) someone sensible with money, who has a real job.
This is something that worked really well for John. I’ve met his wife, Krissy, and a more formidable, fun, amazing person I have yet to meet. And she knows from money. Seriously smart about it. I wish I had married Krissy.
But, really, this is Scalzi confusing his own excellent good luck with general advice for everyone. Not everyone’s going to meet a Krissy. I suspect there’s only one and she ain’t leaving Scalzi anytime soon. Not everyone has any interest in getting married or shacking up. And, call me a romantic, but taking into account someone’s money management skills is not something I was thinking about when I fell in love.
Not to mention the salient advice my mother gave me which was to never depend on some man1 to look after you. Make your own way in the world. Earn your own money.
8. Unless you have a truly compelling reason to be there, get the hell out of New York/LA/San Francisco.
Rubbish! Big city living can be cheaper than being out in the burbs or the bush. Food is usually much cheaper, clothes too. Pretty much everything, really, except accommodation. That’s a very big except, I admit, but the notion that everything is cheaper outside big cities is rubbish. Sure NYC and Sydney have some of the most expensive restaurants and produce in the world but they also have some of the cheapest.
Living in New York or Sydney or Melbourne or any European city also means you don’t have to have a car. Cars are hugely expensive and they’re only going to get more expensive (price of oil ain’t ever going down, people). You live on your big property in Ohio or wherever and you have to have a car. I am a strong advocate of car-less living.
Cities are where a lot of the writing work is. We are still monkeys and face-to-face interaction is often more effective than emails or letters especially when you are starting out. Obviously, contacts aren’t everything: you have to be talented and hard working. There are many writers who have built careers without ever living anywhere near NYC or Sydney or London or wherever. But contacts can lead to work and there are more of them in cities.
There are more people in cities which means you’re more likely to find people like you. Living someplace where you are the only person of colour/writer/science fiction fan/nudist/australian/sculptor can really really suck. Sure you can find those communities online, but a real life community is pretty wonderful too.
And, lastly, cities are fun. They’re bursting with entertainment and great people and awesome food and all sorts of unexpected joys and pleasures. All of which I find incredibly inspiring for my writing. I’m not even sure I’d be a writer without all that wonderful city stimulation.
Ironically, I write this from a rocking chair in the country watching red-bellied woodpeckers feeding. I don’t hate the country; I just don’t want to live here.
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The thought that anyone, anywhere, squees over me … well, it makes me want to squee, is what it does.
Olá!!
Parabéns!! muito belo e criativo o seu trabalho!!
um abraço do Brasil!!
the innocent and lively scent from your artwork reminds my childhood, love! love! ^^
I love the bright colors, particularly those lime boots!