The Saga of Summer Lost

Summer’s rolling to a crushing halt. Pressing all the golden sunshine into a few last precious hours. Did I get enough. Beautiful blue sky, white sun, ocean curl. Did I sit poised in front of a computer screen too long, waiting for words that wouldn’t come.

Wouldn’t. Come. Words.

Days slip by, blue fades to black and the buzzing of lightning bugs turns into the whisper of autumn wind.

It. Comes. Soon.

The winter sky will hang bleak, my soul will be pressed against the brown earth and I will long for just one more minute of perfect summer. I will press my palm against cold window, longing for warmth.

Sky. Pale. Skin.

White and black and brown will replace my summer garden. My heart will thunder less and my flesh will grow thick. Longing for the lean days of gentle breeze. I will walk less and eat more, burrow into a cocoon.

Need. Summer. Heat.

R. Crumb's Book of Genesis

An illustrated version of the Book of Genesis, by R. Crumb, is available for pre-order on Amazon.com.

An excerpt from a recent article about Crumb in The New Yorker:

"At first, he thought about doing a take-off of the story of Adam and Eve, and then a friend suggested he do the whole of Genesis. Crumb accepted the challenge, but the text seemed to him so bizarre that he quickly realized he couldn't sustain a satirical approach. He resolved to use the words of the Bible unabridged: "I did it as a straight illustration job."

Keira Knightley plays Fairy Godmother

Keira Knightley stars as a Fairy Godmother in an upcoming short film titled, The Continuing And Lamentable Saga Of The Suicide Brothers.


It appears to be a strange tale (always the best!) about two brothers who head out to the shed every day to kill themselves.


Apparently, this is where Knightley's character enters the picture. I'm looking forward to this dark fae story.

The Great Vanishing Trick

You know her, you love her. But apparently she's about to go into hiding. Well, partial hiding, that is.

Saturn is just about to tilt on her axis, a feat she accomplishes every 15 years. And when she does, her rings—her lovely rings filled with mud, ice and moons—will temporarily disappear.

Scheduled date for magic axis tilt: August 11.

Live from the Hugo Awards

The 2009 Hugo Awards are being announced tonight:

The Big Heart Award goes to Andrew Porter.

The Campbell Award goes to David Anthony Durham.

Best Fan Writer goes to Cheryl Morgan.

Best Fan Artist goes to Frank Wu.

Best Fanzine goes to Electric Velocipede.

Best Semiprozine goes to Weird Tales.

Best Related Book goes to Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded, John Scalzi

Dramatic Presentation: Long Form goes to Wall-E.

Dramatic Presentation: Short Form goes to Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog, Joss Whedon.

Best Editor: Long Form goes to David G Hartwell.

Best Editor: Short Form goes to Ellen Datlow.

New category, Best Graphic Story goes to Girl Genius, Kaja and Phil Foglio.

Best Professional Artist goes to Donato Giancola.

Best Short Story goes to "Exhalation", Ted Chiang.

Best Novelette goes to "Shoggoths in Bloom", Elizabeth Bear.

Best Novella goes to "The Erdmann Nexus", Nancy Kress.

Best Novel goes to The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman.

Congratulations to all!!

The Story Contest

Steve Parolini, over at Novel Doctor, just announced the winners in his short story contest.

Woo hoo! I was one of the winners.

All of the top three stories are posted on his site today--you should stop over and take a look. And there will be more stories posted throughout the week.

Then, when these stories have all been posted and the festivities are over and the confetti lays scattered on the cyber-cement, well, then you should keep checking out his site.

He's a master writing teacher. You could learn some mad skills over there. And there might even be an alien or two, because this guy likes sci fi.

Book Covers in YA

In honor of SCBWI, which is being held this week, I decided to do a post on what’s going on in YA. So I went to the local Barnes & Nobles and took some photos of the book covers that line the shelves.


If you haven’t strolled through the YA section lately, you’ve been missing out on the latest trends.


Why go through the YA section, especially if you’re writing for adults? Because if there’s anything fun going on right now, it’s starting here.


These readers are going to grow up and they’re going to be hungry.


I’ve never seen such an explosion of imagination. Yes, there are copycat stories and similarities in theme. But, honestly, you can write almost anything here right now.


Keep it clean (my recommendation) and exciting (their demand) and if at all possible, write about fantasy (we both advise that).


These covers all caught my attention. If I was buying (I was meeting a friend for our own writing adventure), I’d have purchased every single one of these books.


But after writing this post, I think I’ll go back. And buy them all. And keep them for myself. For that little girl in me that never grew up.

Not My Hero

It may seem fun and cheeky to condense your opinion down to 140 characters. To post it where the rest of the world is going to see. But the old saying, "two wrongs don't make a right," certainly applies to the cyber world today.

It started with a post on The Envelope by Elizabeth Snead.

Apparently Ryan O'Neal lost his last remaining brain cells, and his conscience, at Farrah Fawcett's funeral. He later bragged to Vanity Fair that he was so low, he even tried to pick up his own daughter, Tatum. I say 'bragged' because I think he knew it would bring him public attention.

Well, it did. Greg Grunberg, of Heroes, already stepped up to the Twitter plate and struck out with a foul ball.

@greggrunberg's Tweet: "Ryan O'Neal hit on his own daughter Tatum at Farrah's funeral... That's sick.. & HOT!!"

Hot?? What's hot about a father trying to pick up his own daughter? It's disgusting and degrading.

I already had a poor opinion of O'Neal. No big surprise there. But I never expected a comment like that from Grunberg. Granted, he has a right to his 140 character opinion.

But he certainly isn't my "Hero" anymore.

Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Blog

If it was a battle, I would say Twitter is winning. But Facebook is close behind. The blog, this sweet little blog right here, well, she's limping along with thorns in her feet and the jeering of cyber-crowds in her ears.

I've been adjusting to the changing Internet world. But it sure isn't easy to juggle multiple social networks and platforms at once.

I love Facebook. Really. So many things to do, even when no one's chatting. Vampire Wars (way fun), quizzes, links to videos, and have I mentioned the photos? Or the fact that you can cruise with the top down, wander through all your pals' pages?

Then I joined Twitter. And felt so alone. Like I had fallen into a vast Internet vortex and all my words were now muffled and silent. Until I stumbled into a chat today. I'm not sure where I was. I'm so new to the scene I don't even know what to call it.

It was @writechat, on Sunday, from noon to 3 p.m. Better than speed dating. (Not that I know anything about that, but hey, I've seen movies.) It was like speed dating when all the people have six heads and they're all carrying on multiple conversations at the same time. I think I was talking to myself before it was over.

I'd have died if it hadn't been for TweetDeck...

TweetDeck? I forgot to mention it, huh. And then there's that awesome site where you can shorten URLs...

I don't know. Apparently I am catching on to this new cyber universe.

Maybe there's still hope for this Alien Girl after all.