Friday: 5 things on my mind
I don't usually do a pot-luck post on Fridays, but I have many random thoughts in my head and no coherent theme so I'm going with the flow.
1) Earthquake! Montgomery County, Maryland, where I live was hit by a 3.6 magnitude earthquake this morning at a little after 5:00 am. I slept through it! Everyone is talking about what it felt like, and I have nothing to contribute! I feel so left out.
2) The old spice guy. Am I the only one who never saw these commercials? They are hilarious! The actor is fantastic (and gorgeous in a towel, BTW). I watched a video last night (when I should have been writing) about how they made that first Superbowl commercial (the one with the horse), which was filmed in one long shot (three days and 80 takes, 57 of them on day 3!). There's even a wonderful take-off on it about studying at the library in college.
3) Con season. I can only afford to attend a limited number of conventions. I already went to Balticon in May, and I plan to attend Capclave and World Fantasy in October, but Readercon was last weekend and NASFic is next month. I had no plans to go to either, but I am seeing friends like scottedelman and tomdoyle post about going, so now I am feeling blue about missing out. I have never gone to ether of these two cons, but I was thinking this year we might go to one or the other. But then item #5 came up, and so we did that instead. I want to have my con and go to the beach, too!
4) Self-publishing. While I wait for the agent to sell my YA contemporary science fantasy, I have decided to publish some older, more traditional science fiction novels as ebooks. I will be using a pseudonym, because my agent tells me the last thing you want to do is muddy your track record with an effort that doesn't sell well, and self-publishing is a even more of a crap shoot than traditional publishing. My niece-in-law (the graphic designer) is working on some covers, I have a friend doing the copy editing, and I am looking into conversion services for the formatting. I also have some plans on marketing, so we will see how it goes.
5) The beach. I miss the beach! I really wish I was back on the Outer Banks, in a lovely house right on the water with a pool in the back yard and the ocean just beyond the dune. I'm including the shot of all of us on the deck between the pool and house so you can see there really were 19 of us.
And that's my Friday! How is yours going?
1) Earthquake! Montgomery County, Maryland, where I live was hit by a 3.6 magnitude earthquake this morning at a little after 5:00 am. I slept through it! Everyone is talking about what it felt like, and I have nothing to contribute! I feel so left out.
2) The old spice guy. Am I the only one who never saw these commercials? They are hilarious! The actor is fantastic (and gorgeous in a towel, BTW). I watched a video last night (when I should have been writing) about how they made that first Superbowl commercial (the one with the horse), which was filmed in one long shot (three days and 80 takes, 57 of them on day 3!). There's even a wonderful take-off on it about studying at the library in college.
3) Con season. I can only afford to attend a limited number of conventions. I already went to Balticon in May, and I plan to attend Capclave and World Fantasy in October, but Readercon was last weekend and NASFic is next month. I had no plans to go to either, but I am seeing friends like scottedelman and tomdoyle post about going, so now I am feeling blue about missing out. I have never gone to ether of these two cons, but I was thinking this year we might go to one or the other. But then item #5 came up, and so we did that instead. I want to have my con and go to the beach, too!
4) Self-publishing. While I wait for the agent to sell my YA contemporary science fantasy, I have decided to publish some older, more traditional science fiction novels as ebooks. I will be using a pseudonym, because my agent tells me the last thing you want to do is muddy your track record with an effort that doesn't sell well, and self-publishing is a even more of a crap shoot than traditional publishing. My niece-in-law (the graphic designer) is working on some covers, I have a friend doing the copy editing, and I am looking into conversion services for the formatting. I also have some plans on marketing, so we will see how it goes.
5) The beach. I miss the beach! I really wish I was back on the Outer Banks, in a lovely house right on the water with a pool in the back yard and the ocean just beyond the dune. I'm including the shot of all of us on the deck between the pool and house so you can see there really were 19 of us.
And that's my Friday! How is yours going?