Crits, ideas, and writing ....

Not doing so well on the crit marathon this week. Had to send comments for three chapters to a person by email because I couldn't produce a full critique. Seems I have a really hard time doing hard sf. Weird since one of my best buddies writes sf and I have no problems giving him full comments. And then, the latest is that I miss three postings. I copied all them one day and went to post crits two days later and they were all replaced already. Hate when that happens, and it looks like others are in the same situation. It's common, especially for me - and I don't think there's anything that can be done about it. I just edited my posts to let people know on what day I'll take them down. Maybe I can help someone else avoid this too.

In spite of missing being able to count six crits this week, the marathon's really helped me get a jump start back into the game. I just copied five more posts. Let's see if I get them read before they disappear.

I posted the beginnings to two ideas I had on OWW. So far, getting good feedback that will help me determine where to go with these ideas. I think it will work out well, and I'll be able to salvage both ideas and make good stories out of them.

On the writing ... working on the going green series, more articles (as always), and formulating a children's story idea.

Finally and Wordle

This morning, we were finally able to get my paypal payment to go through. From now on I'm going to check on the 15th of each month and try to make sure everything will work as it should before the payment time hits.

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.


I did one for this blog - their code's not working here, but it can be found at this address: http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/142827/Shambalog

Also did one for a backstory for the Knightens Quest books
http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/142809/Ashlyn_Dying



Create your own at http://wordle.net

Giving Holly Lisle some grief ....

Feeling pretty bad now. My paypal subscription for the How to Think Sideways Course got screwed up and Holly's been trying to help me with it. She gets it set up so I can fix it and then I go mess it up again.

Her course is awesome and I hope she has the patience to deal with me on this. I hope and pray that I get this right the next time!

Also, her course has made a huge impact on me at church. Partly because I also am putting together church related articles, so my mind is always in the writing mode. At yesterday's sermon I was getting some good writing fodder from the pastor, and before I knew what I was doing I had a whole cluster map created from the sermon itself. It was so cool!

This experience has turned me off from using paypal too much for my own products. I really thought I would as a fillin until I can get all the products set up on clickbank ... but I'm not now. Even if I have to hold back the next module until the third one's finished and publish both of them at the same time. Luckily, it's still early enough in the game for me that I can do this without endangering my business too much.

Progress Update

Today, I've outlined the next info product report for the Digital Church Secretary website. I also planned out the extras that go with it and am working on the one for kids. Doing a bit of the extra bonus that goes with the report first so that my daughter can proofread it for me when she's in town Wednesday. I'm not a kid person, so I want to make sure someone who is helps me word it for kids.

This may be a short work week for me anyway, as we may have a weekend trip coming up. But I may cut another day out. A friend of mine who hasn't been here for four years is back in town. She has to take a day trip tomorrow and I may take off to accompany her.

Still, I've checked my to-do list, and I should be able to get the writing and marketing work for this week done. Either tomorrow or Thursday, I work on my assignment for Holly's fiction writing program, and some scenes/sketches for the URU creation project.

Side work in non-fiction is the wine report and sales letter report/article.

Transcriptase

Cross-posted from my editorial blog for Whispering Spirits Digital Magazine

In light of this year's incident with a sf/f editor's bigotry coming out in official magazine correspondence with an author, I feel compelled to assure my readers, and authors, of a few things.

I do not care what color you are or where you are from or your religion or cultural life. I care about your story. We remove all author identifiers before reading each story.

We do not judge the story based on what culture it represents - we judge the story. And cultural differences within ourselves NEVER make it into our analysis of the story, even amongst ourselves (the staff).

I do not dare speak for my staff, as they are their own people, but I do not carry any biases against others. And if I did, I would NOT allow them into my editorial comments.

OK, I lie. Sometimes a favored author does submit a story or poem to me, and that does influence me. I am the one who removes the author identity before sending it on to the editors.

The internet itself is a huge world, and people of all nationalities and all cultures and all lifestyles free mix together within it. I'm friends with many who live lifestyles and cultures I don't agree with, but I respect their choices and their freedom. I do my best to make sure my magazine(s) respect the rights of others also, even the rights of a character in a story.

Google the blogs for Helix, if you're unfamiliar with this situation. Or go to Transcriptase and read the intro, along with the author statements.

I suggest everyone visits Transcriptase, by the way. It's a good lesson in how to be professional, why you should be, and how others will hold you accountable if you are not. And how writers should stand up together against those who refuse to respect others.