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It's like good news central here. My brother heard this morning that he had won tickets to see the Sterephonics in London and to meet them at a party later. I don't have the full details as he has gone racing off to London as the party is today. Here is my favourite Stereophonics song.



For him it's the equivalent of my getting a phone call from Tim Burton saying he wants to make The Poisoned Apple into an animated musical, and the same day Jack Bauer bursts into the reception at work and saves me from a paper cut.

My good news - I won £10 on the Lottery. YAY! Cate sits down and realises her news isn't quite as cool. Better news, Gustavo Bondoni has blogged about the cover of the Return to Luna anthology. Once again congratulations to all those who made it into the antho, I am forever jealous.

Received an email this morning from Eric Reynolds over at Hadley Rille Books re the Return to Luna contest. I should note that it was a Round Robin email and not a personal, hey I just had to tell you Miss Catherine Gardner. Anyway, back to the email: they will be announcing the results on August 9th.

AUGUST 9TH!!!!

Thank God that's a Saturday.

And so the nail biting increases. If you've checked out any of their previous anthologies you will understand just how much I want to get in - they are Quality (yep, with a capital Q).

I've almost finished working on 'Treading the Regolith', my story for the Return to Luna anthology. Fingers crossed.

It's my first attempt at writing a story that has no hints of horror, fantasy or the surreal and I may well have gone completely off-track. When it comes down to it does it matter? Okay yes, but... I'm currently half-way through the Desolate Places anthology (published by the same publisher) and I've noticed a few of the stories (though set in sci-fi land) are human based and I've tried to capture that feel in my story. Again, a wee bit of a departure from what I do, but then as I don't always know what I'm doing there's nothing new there. Did any of that make any sense? Probably not.

It's out for critique at the moment - gulp!

I've pilfered the picture for this post from the internet. Now that I finally have a gorgeous, wee-bit expensive (for me) digital camera I was going to take my own picture of the moon but wimped out. Maybe when I post news of a rejection/acceptance.

Off topic: It's gorgeous weather here and I'm cooped up in a stuffy little study - now that's dedication to my art.

Colin Grant is the son of Jamaican parents who moved to Britain in the late 1950s. He spent 5 years studying medicine before turning to the stage. He has written and produced numerous plays and is currently a producer for BBC Radio. In his new book, Negro with a a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey Grant looks at one of the most controversial figures in African-American history. Both worshiped and despised, Garvey led an extraordinary life as the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association which had branches in more than 40 countries. In honor of W. E. B. Du Bois’s birthday, which is tomorrow, Grant has taken a closer look at the relationship between Du Bois and Garvey.

A great excitement swirled around the garden reception for W.E.B Du Bois in the grounds of the royal governor of Jamaica’s official residence. On 3 May 1915, the island’s representative men assembled to honor the Harvard-educated African American, feted by the local papers as a scholar who certainly ‘belonged to the aristocracy of intellect in America’. A stocky dark-skinned black man was one of the last in line to extend a proud hand of welcome. Du Bois later recalled his ‘remarkable intensity’ but other than that, little impression was made on him by the man who was destined, over the next decade, to become his nemesis: Marcus Garvey. (more…)

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Okay . . . I'm not going to panic. 

I'm not going to fret. 

I'm sure my writer's imagination is just working overtime right now.

What has me in such a tizzy?

I found THIS on B's desk today.

Yea!  I"m back to making regular writing time.  I managed to revise three chapters of George's story yesterday before the Boy Scouts arrived.

This was their first meeting in three weeks, so of course, we had serious business to take care of.

We gathered our tools:



Followed the directions given in our handy Boy Scout Manual:





And fired marshmallows at each other!





Catapults!  They're right up there with the yoohoo boats!!!

At this moment, hubby is out doing last minute shopping.  Ditto for A and her boyfriend. 

B is home with me . . . he and his friend S are sledding off their Christmas energy.  I'm trying to distract myself by working on a critique I owe a friend, because . . . well . . . boys are crazy!!!  How come no one ever warned me about this before I had one??

They picked the steepest hill they could find which happens to be right next to the house. 
I caught this scene when looking out my office window.



So I went running outside.  "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" I said.

B rolls his eyes, which have a devious twinkle I must add.  He says to S, "She's such a Mom."
To me he says, "I've been doing this all week."

Hubby says they'll be fine.  "There's a well worn path they're following, it's all good."


Don't look . . . don't look . . . don't look . . .




I looked.




twice.


Note for the faint of heart and any horrified family members:  Both boys were bailing at the first sign of trouble.  And even when there was no signs of trouble!  They were spotting for each other, which I thought was clever.  I could hear their giggles and shouts for over an hour.  I think they enjoyed the bailing more than the sledding.

Writing has been very slow lately.  Even when I do "make" time, my brain refuses to put  it's Christmas thoughts on the shelf for a couple hours.  

For example (because you know I always have one!)  I open George's story, read a couple chapters, make a couple notes.  Before I know what I'm doing, I'm dialing my sister. 

Where are the Christmas festivities on the 23rd/24th. Did the guys know the Pat's/Dolphin game was moved to 4pm?  Aren't they nuts for going and freezing!?  Who's house am I staying at?  What should I bring for dinner? 

 Once I have my answers, I go back to George's story.  

Half an hour later, A calls.  Finals are next week, and she's ready for them.  But she can't wait to get home.  She wants her own shower.  She wants to hug Cookie.  She can't wait to antagonize B by using his spy gear against him.

I reassure her that we're counting down the days too.  I go back to George's Story.  All of a sudden my mind screams, "the pizzelle maker!  You never ordered the pizzelle maker!"

Sigh.

So, I'm sorry to say, I have no writing news to report.

But I will have pizzelle's by the weekend.

Let me show you B's latest creation!  It's much more interesting than my writing life at the moment!

His latest school project was to create a continent.  It had to be based on realistic latitude and longitude coordinates.  Wherever he "discovered" it, he had to make sure the plants and animals were indigineous   indigeneous   belonged in that climate.




Meet, Hydro Island!  Located in the Pacific Ocean, northeast of Australia and southwest of Hawaii, this island was discovered by B. D. Wight and his group of explorers in 2015 on June 16th at 12 o'clock.  B.D. was actually on his way to see dino fossils in Hawaii when he spotted the island.  He set down his helicopter to investigate.

B.D. and his crew, Jack, Mike and Brent, found sea eagles circling above and crayfish in the lakes.  Some spots were forests, some spots were plains.  He studied the island for a couple months.

By 2020, Hydro was on the official world map.



Okay then, I'm off to get ready to sub.  Then I have church youth play practice.  Then I have to walk a couple miles to keep the snacks I can't resist off my hips.  Theeeeeeeen, I think I can get back to polishing up George's story. 

I think I need a nice long vacation on Hydro!!! 

Anyone want to join me?

When cynthialord 

I love Laura's art!

So I printed and cut the names Cindy sent me. Then I consulted with one of my creative assistants, B.   I told him I wanted a unique way of choosing the name.

B:     “We could toss them in the air and the one that hits the ground first wins.”

Me:    “Not exciting enough,”

B:    “We could put all the pieces of paper on a light bulb and see which one burns first.”

Me:  “Too exciting!”

B:     “I could tape them to the wall and throw a dart.”

Me:   “Hey! You're getting warmer! I like that idea. But can we kind of do something that goes along with Laura's art? You know, wildlife . . . nature . . . ”

B:    “We could throw them on the front lawn and watch to see which one gets eaten by a squirrel first.”

Me:   “Paper wouldn't really be good for the animals.”

B:    “Hey! We can tape them on my world.”

Me:   “Your world?”

And that's exactly what we did!

I mixed up the names.  B taped them on:

James B. Rule, author of Privacy in Peril: How We are Sacrificing a Fundamental Right in Exchange for Security and Convenience is Distinguished Affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of Law and Society at the University of California, Berkeley and a former fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. He is also a winner of the C. Wright Mills Award. Privacy in Peril looks at the legal ways in which our private data is used by the government and private industry. In the original article below Rule looks at a seemingly innocuous effort to track schoolchildren and the issues it raises.

If you increasingly feel that information about your life is taking on a life of its own—collected, monitored, transmitted and used by interests outside your control—you’re probably not paranoid.

A recent story in Information Week tells of a school in Edenthorpe, England, that is experimenting with electronic tracking of its pupils. The idea is to fit their clothing with RFID tags—tiny radio transmitters—that can enable school authorities to monitor people’s whereabouts throughout the school day. RFID technology is already widely in use by retailers to track merchandise within shops and, some suspect, after purchase by customers. (more…)

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