corrinalaw

For Free.

Which a $25 eHarlequin gift certificate.

Why?

The short version: I begged.

The long version: 
The Smart Bitches Love Trashy Books (http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/) somehow strong-armed Sony into providing a number of refurbished eReaders for a mass test drive by posters on the website. We had to send in a short email saying why we deserved to be part of the test drive.

I begged. Something about four kids, a long summer, and limited trips to the bookstore, combined with allowing said children to check out the eReader themselves and the availability of YA books. And that the mass test drive might make a good post for Geek Dad, too.

So far, I've downloaded Christine Merrill's A Mistletoe Wager and A Wicked Liaison. I'm halfway through the latter and have surprisingly little problem in reader from an electronic screen.

I'm going to bring it to RWA National in D.C. for the week and pass it around and perhaps get tips on fun ways to use it.

Speaking of which, I will be gone until probably Sunday/Monday, unless a considerate roommate lends me their wireless device for a quick check in. :) 

But I will be bringing my Alphasmart, in the hope of doing a few pages of Sky of Seneca while I'm there.

It does, honest.

Because I like chatting and talking to people on the internet. Sometimes I talk to them in several different places--message boards, twitter, livejournal, facebook--and I enjoy it immensely.

Except people don't always use the same names everywhere.

I IZ CONFUSED.

And now I'm off to RWA National in D.C. on Tuesday and I know I'll see some on-line friends except I'm not sure what their real names are. :( 

Which is more my fault than their fault, their real names are in one of those places, I just get them all mixed up.

ARGH.

New post for this morning.

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/07/sherlock-holmes-in-connecticut/

I think the first big indication that I was a hopeless geek was when I discovered "Hound of the Baskervilles" in the junior high library in 7th grade. I loved the book so much that I started repeating passages from it to my girlfriends.

They were not amused. :sigh: 

Undaunted, I grabbed The Annotated Sherlock Holmes by W.S. Baring-Gould from my mail order book club and not only did I start memorizing the stories, I started memorizing all of Baring-Gould's careful notes and introduction. Where did Watson get shot? How many times? And just how many times was the man married, anyway? 

Not to mention trying to figure out what Holmes' past was like. When I got to "The Greek Interpreter" and discovered he had a brother, that was BIG.

Right now, I have in my book collection the new Annotated Holmes edition (nice slipcover) and various Holmes novels written by others, including Nicolas Meyer's books, Laurie R. King's Holmes/Russell series (though not the new one), and I've read books my Manly Wade Wellman, among others.

Anyway, if you're able to take a day trip to the Gillette estate in Connecticut, it's definitely worth the drive, not only for the Holmes stuff but the grounds are amazing and the view is perfect.

It is known in this house as two full days in which to use up energy of minions, though the energy used up is more often my own.

However, my local Romance Writers of America chapter Book in Seven Weeks today and I still managed to get a good start. I had the book plotted with the help of my critique partner, Toni Andrews, Kristan Higgins (awesome romantic comedy, look her up) and my new friend Dee.

The book is "Sky of Seneca."

It's off to a good start and a few new characters just popped into my head. First research issue--if you were a Roman engineer trying to fly a glider, what would you wear besides goggles? I figure boots for landing, which means leggings, and not sure about the shirt. Light silk with a leather jacket? Too heavy?

Must ponder.

In the meantime, I have a short Geek Dad post on the X-Men:
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/07/superhero-hook-up-chart-makes-your-romantic-life-seem-simple/

Once upon a time, I read just about everything but I gave up around the time Madeline Pryor became the Goblin Queen. (I'm fairly sure the awful art had something to do with it...). Anyone have a favorite run? Still reading?

Check out my name on the right hand side of the Geek Dad blog:

www.wired.com/geekdad

Links to this site plus my twitter feed, so I can annoy, er, talk to more people. :) 

Welcome to anyone new who drops by. I admit, I do feel a bit like when visitors come to my house and I haven't dusted lately.

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/06/top-10-reasons-that-superheroes-disappear/

Got any of your own? I came up with these quickly, I bet I missed some. :) 

I thought maybe it was time I played around with my lj.

I picked this color because it matches the cover of Dinah of Seneca.

Thoughts? I may not be done fiddling. :) 

Today is apparently Joss Whedon's 45th birthday.

I put together a very quick blog post about it:

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/06/happy-birthday-to-joss-whedon/

She has eaten two small cans of food this morning.

And she wants more.

So much for being mostly dead.

For the time being anyway.

Okay, I ran into formatting problems last night in moving MS word over to here and then inserting the LJ cut. Apologies to anyone who followed the old link.

Trying again.

In short, Grayson's a security agent. Trisha's a crime reporter. Five paintings were stolen from an art exhibit that Grayson's firm was protecting. Trisha got wind of the story and came forward with info about the lost subway tunnels in order to get in on the whole thing.

They went into the tunnels together.

And...

"I thought ticking time bombs were a myth."
"No."
"Fuck."
"Yes."

And the first thing she did was ask for food.

But she can only seem to eat in small amount. A little deli turkey, some Fancy Feast, off to try the 9Lives chicken, some kitty treats, and then to sleep.

I've no idea if that's enough for her but at least she was interested in eating.

I had to chase Midnight kitten away.

Midnight: "This is all for ME? You shouldn't have!" :yummy:
Me: "No, it's for Elf, who's old and sick." :pushed kitty away:
Midnight: "I'm sure it's for me." :comes back:
Me: "No, it's not."
Midnight: :::growls::
Me: :picks up Midnight and locks her in a room withe kitten chow::

My spell check has decided laundromat is an incorrect word. Instead, it suggests Laundromat.

Apparently, MS Word is under the impression that laundromat is still a trademark, like Xerox. However, Firefox seems to be okay with both spellings. OTOH, Firefox is okay with xerox, lower case, as well.

Go figure.

In other news, after more $$$$ than I want to contemplate, I am bringing Elf home today. She's started eating a bit more. They ran tests which don't tell them anything except "she's old and didn't want to eat much."

I've no idea how much time I bought her. I know the I.V. definitely helped. My plan now is bring her twice a week for fluids and see what happens. The next time she stops eating for a few days, I think it will just be time to let her go. Possibly I should have done that this time. But she didn't seem ready. Or maybe that was me.

Kitty may be in kidney failure. She's getting I.V. fluids but...well, they're doing urinalysis to see how bad it is. I don't mind spending money to get her fixed up but I do mind if she's back in the same situation in two weeks. That's not fair to her. She'll stay overnight tonight and I'll know more tomr.

And I don't want her to spend her last days at the vet, either.

:sigh:

Twenty-two is ancient for a cat. I knew this was coming but I still hate it.

I wanted her to go peacefully in her sleep.

:sigh:

She's eating again this morning. Not her own food but the sliced turkey that I'm giving her.

We'll see what the vet says tomr.

Hi Flist. Been busy around here.

I'm now on Twitter.

It is an insidious way to share information. It looks like you're simply posting bits and pieces but in many ways, it's more intimate than a blog or Facebook because those bits and pieces quickly add up into a full day and that's intimate.

I'm a bit wary about that. I'm also a bit wary about Twitter being the go-to news source, like with the current situation in Iran. It's great that people are using it but I feel like shouting "how do you know that these twitter reporters are where they say there are and that things are happening the way they say they are?"

But this could be the cynical paranoid reporter in me.

If anyone is looking for me on Twitter or Facebook, I'm Corrina Lawson. I think Twitter mashed the two names together.

On Wired.com and the Geek Dad blog there...well, I've been named a Core Contributor.

What does this mean? It's equivalent to staff writer, as far as I can tell, and I'll get my name, email and twitter feed on the right side of the blog.

What it means to me is that they thought I did an excellent job on my posts and were impressed. Having not done the journalism thing for a long time, I was more than happy.

It feels like I've been given an unexpected gift, one that I really, really wanted but didn't know I wanted.

Watched two movies.

Dan in Real Life. Not bad, glad I didn't pay to see it in the theater.

Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day. Adored it. Set in London right before WWII and centered around an underground club. Frances McDormand stars, along with Ciaran Hinds (Caeser from Rome) and Amy Adams and a host of great English actors. Beautifully underplayed by McDormand and Hinds.

And the personal part of the post:
My very old Elf kitty is not eating well. And her back legs seem to be dragging. She's 22. She's been getting fluids once a week for the past year and hanging in, mostly sleeping, but happy to be around. Not the last few days. I even tried feeding her deli meat, with not too much luck.

She's 22 years old. It may be her time. She's a had a good long life but...she's my Elf kitty. My wedding present. She was a little tortoiseshell kitty, only three pounds, when we got her. She's lived five homes. She disappeared in Tennessee for three days once, came back. She disappeared for three days here once. Came back. I haven't let her out since.

I'll be taking her to the vet tomr, to see if she perks up with some more fluids and perhaps some IV food. But I don't want to take extraordinary measures to save her. That wouldn't be fair to her.

:sigh:

They're ten today.

TEN!

How did that happen? It's simultaneously been the LONGEST ten years of my life and yet the shortest as well.

Cupcakes have been sent to one school for snack, the other is getting a cake at her school. Tonight, presents and more cake. They wanted molten lava cakes.

Ten years. Wow. And let's not talk about the fact that the eldest daughter will be SIXTEEN next month.

Oh, and random Star Trek thoughts....

I had insomnia last night. So I was flicking channels and found Star Trek: The Next Generation, the episode where Picard's trying to have a quiet vacation and instead has an adventure with a beautiful woman.

1. Patrick Stewart, I appreciate that you have a nice body but sorry, that little short bathing suit does nothing for you.
2. Beautiful woman flirts with Picard, he wants to go back to reading. Somehow I cannot see this scenario playing out the same way with James T. Kirk, either the Shatner or Pine version. Lighten up, Jean-Luc.

At the risk of sounding dumb (which, really, has never stopped me before), I need to ask a question.

Increasingly, I see 'meta' as a term discussed when analyzing creative work. Obviously, it's short for metatext--and I'm guessing that this is a term for the...well, that's it. I'm guessing. I know it's about analyzing the themes/symbolism in creative work. At least, I think it is. :)

However, I've seen it here and there and I don't want to guess, plus I think people are using it a little bit differently each time.

And to brighten up the post, I give you the first photo of twins. Plus Mr. & Mrs. Claus.

Check it out, over at Wired.com!

My "Ten Things" post about "Up" is on the front page of the website.

Above the Fold, said my editor.

And yes, that phrasing is wonderfully ironic, given that my romantic mystery is entitled Above the Fold.

Which, btw, it just won the CONN contest for romantic suspense. Found out this weekend. Which was cool. I think I may put up the first scene here later just to celebrate.

I've been writing a lot of non-fiction for the last month, mostly because it's shorter than the fiction I should be writing and mostly because I've been practicing some long-atrophied skills.

One thing getting a gig on a blog that's well read like Geek Dad will do for you is make you hyper-aware that, well, a lot of someone's are going to read it, particularly a professional editor. :)

Here's the latest Geek Dad post on Wired.com:
www.wired.com/geekdad

Just scroll down to find the Jonny Quest entry.

And then I've been busy with Sequential Tart as well. I started writing a simple review of a book called DC Comics Covergirls  and it ended up being longer and more interesting, especially at the urging of my very fine editrix.

It's up this week:

www.sequentialtart.com/article.php

There's a lot of great stuff on Sequential Tart this week, especially ruminations on Star Treks past and present, in honor of the new movie.

Hey,

I read some articles recently on my wonderful flist about Dell's amazing failure in marketing to women, and how they backtracked.

I'm thinking it might be an interesting Geek Dad article (how life can be tough for Geek Girls) and was wondering if anyone still had the links handy.

Thanks!