Psst, wanna buy a house...?
If you're interested in moving down to the wilds of Dorset, Evil Twin and the boyf are trying to find buyers for their one bedroom mid terrace place in Blandford... It's only been on the market a couple of weeks...
It's on Right Move here if you've the inclination.... They really need some better photos (or any!) of it though....
28 March 2007
Everybody's going to Canada...
World Horror Convention starts up in Toronto at the end of the week, and how jealous am I that I can't go. Too much work, not enough money. Bah. And it's Toronto people. The land of Charles De Lint! (Ok, I think technically he's Ottawa, but still, I've always wanted to go to Canada!)
So the lovely Chris Teague is going to be there, also Pete & Jan on their belated honeymoon, also Paul & Marie on their actual honeymoon (they got married last Friday, did I say?) And I have to confess to being quite curious about what a Steve Jones organised convention is like - plus there's rumours that they're introducing the Canucks to the raffle and after the Fcon debacle last year I'm quite interested to see how they do it. Have to rely on M&P reporting back, though...
Imminent technological doom...
Finally have the date for the dreaded broadband conversion. April 3rd. Eek. The seas will boil, the sky will be split asunder and it'll all go terribly terribly wrong. It's new tech in this house, so what else would we expect!
Get thee to a play...
And Chazzie baby has his play wot he writ opening next week. According to his latest blog, the opening night tickets are going slowly so if you're up Tyneside way, pop along and cheer him up!
The play's called 'A Cold Coming', and will be performed over April 3rd-5th at the Library Theatre, South Shields.
And in other Chaz related news, if you missed his Lit & Phil Xmas ghost story evening last year, the stories have been published in book form with an extra audio CD!
Blurb direct from himself: "Volume two is now available, featuring: Sean O'Brien, Gail-Nina Anderson, Chaz Brenchley, Ann Cleeves, Simon Morden and Carol McGuigan
The official RRP will be £18 (and, as Chaz says, six stories, two CDs, lovely binding - it's a bargain already...)," but for a limited period only, you can buy it directly from Lord Brenchley of Desperance via his website, for just £12 inc. p&p.
Any profits go straight back into funding next year’s event.
For the full skinny pop over to his website
Story Comps
Book2book recently gave a flying mention to an interesting sounding thing - apparently Gollancz & the Daily Mail are getting together on a novel writing comp, the prize being a £30,000 book contract and book published next spring. All you have to do is post your finished book ms to the Daily Mail by beginning of July... Full r&rs on both their websites.
Also, rumour has it that this year's SFX pulp idol continues a tradition of funny rules... this time, if you've ever been paid for piece of fiction, no matter where it appeared, you can't enter. Lo, the sounds of many dreams crashing...
Never mind... there's still the BFS story comp. Mum's admin-ing it again this year, and apparently we've got 3 author judges for the final round...possibly 4, I'm never sure, I stay well out of it... There's a 3000 word max set, but no theme thank god! It was bad enough getting the funny questions about the anniversary theme last year. How do people get our phone number to ask them? It's just a bit freaky. We've already had one chap ring up about this year's one asking if the title counts as part of the word count... (I've no idea, so don't ask me. Logic suggests no, but if you're that worried, surely you'd just cut a couple of superfluous words from the story text to allow for the title? Unless the title is one of those horribly long ones that are only sometimes amusing...)
Comics bits...
Apparently Power Girl's boobs are making for hot debates at the moment... the most recent JSA/JLA cover (for #10, I think) has Power Girl depicted with massive flesh coloured beach balls somehow magically attached to her torso. You have to wonder, how she can actually do any superheroing without getting brained by them... and that's without wondering how she doesn't just pop out through the costume window first time she moves... Mind you, that would make a hell of a distraction...
Shellyscomics made a good blog post about the subject, and here's where you'll find a scan of the image in question. (Second one down). Over at Greenlantern'sbutt you'll find a pic that works better for PG.
World Horror Convention starts up in Toronto at the end of the week, and how jealous am I that I can't go. Too much work, not enough money. Bah. And it's Toronto people. The land of Charles De Lint! (Ok, I think technically he's Ottawa, but still, I've always wanted to go to Canada!)
So the lovely Chris Teague is going to be there, also Pete & Jan on their belated honeymoon, also Paul & Marie on their actual honeymoon (they got married last Friday, did I say?) And I have to confess to being quite curious about what a Steve Jones organised convention is like - plus there's rumours that they're introducing the Canucks to the raffle and after the Fcon debacle last year I'm quite interested to see how they do it. Have to rely on M&P reporting back, though...
Imminent technological doom...
Finally have the date for the dreaded broadband conversion. April 3rd. Eek. The seas will boil, the sky will be split asunder and it'll all go terribly terribly wrong. It's new tech in this house, so what else would we expect!
Get thee to a play...
And Chazzie baby has his play wot he writ opening next week. According to his latest blog, the opening night tickets are going slowly so if you're up Tyneside way, pop along and cheer him up!
The play's called 'A Cold Coming', and will be performed over April 3rd-5th at the Library Theatre, South Shields.
And in other Chaz related news, if you missed his Lit & Phil Xmas ghost story evening last year, the stories have been published in book form with an extra audio CD!
Blurb direct from himself: "Volume two is now available, featuring: Sean O'Brien, Gail-Nina Anderson, Chaz Brenchley, Ann Cleeves, Simon Morden and Carol McGuigan
The official RRP will be £18 (and, as Chaz says, six stories, two CDs, lovely binding - it's a bargain already...)," but for a limited period only, you can buy it directly from Lord Brenchley of Desperance via his website, for just £12 inc. p&p.
Any profits go straight back into funding next year’s event.
For the full skinny pop over to his website
Story Comps
Book2book recently gave a flying mention to an interesting sounding thing - apparently Gollancz & the Daily Mail are getting together on a novel writing comp, the prize being a £30,000 book contract and book published next spring. All you have to do is post your finished book ms to the Daily Mail by beginning of July... Full r&rs on both their websites.
Also, rumour has it that this year's SFX pulp idol continues a tradition of funny rules... this time, if you've ever been paid for piece of fiction, no matter where it appeared, you can't enter. Lo, the sounds of many dreams crashing...
Never mind... there's still the BFS story comp. Mum's admin-ing it again this year, and apparently we've got 3 author judges for the final round...possibly 4, I'm never sure, I stay well out of it... There's a 3000 word max set, but no theme thank god! It was bad enough getting the funny questions about the anniversary theme last year. How do people get our phone number to ask them? It's just a bit freaky. We've already had one chap ring up about this year's one asking if the title counts as part of the word count... (I've no idea, so don't ask me. Logic suggests no, but if you're that worried, surely you'd just cut a couple of superfluous words from the story text to allow for the title? Unless the title is one of those horribly long ones that are only sometimes amusing...)
Comics bits...
Apparently Power Girl's boobs are making for hot debates at the moment... the most recent JSA/JLA cover (for #10, I think) has Power Girl depicted with massive flesh coloured beach balls somehow magically attached to her torso. You have to wonder, how she can actually do any superheroing without getting brained by them... and that's without wondering how she doesn't just pop out through the costume window first time she moves... Mind you, that would make a hell of a distraction...
Shellyscomics made a good blog post about the subject, and here's where you'll find a scan of the image in question. (Second one down). Over at Greenlantern'sbutt you'll find a pic that works better for PG.
26 March 2007
Happy happy happy
Ha hah! No more Prism for me!! Finally finished the March Prism last week (yeah, I know, it was supposed to have been the Feb Prism... but honestly, what else did you expect?) Sent off to the printers and it's sooooo out of my hands now! Vicky's on the mailings now which is beyond fabulous as I can now sit back and watch as Prisms magically appear in the letterbox!
Of course, this didn't happen without the usual run of disasters. This time, it was all the Fcon photos fault. Ok, so technically we're a few months late for doing an Fcon 2006 report, but there were a heap of other BFS AGM type stuff that needed to be published for the members so it seemed churlish not to add the Fcon report (a multi person deal with bits from Allen Ashley, Pete Coleborn, and Paul K & Marie O'R.) So the first batch of photos I had were from uncle Pete, and I'm sure that last time I fiddled with them they were fine... but alas, when I really needed them to work, just touching one of them froze up my machine to the extent where plugs and batteries had to be yanked before it would do anything.
Luckily, ace reporter Sandy A. takes bucketloads of photos so I had those. Except, after inserting every thirdish one, my poor machine crashed... cue many reboots. But it got there eventually.
So, this week our Vicky will be mailing out awards recs forms & an Fcon newsletter/progress reporter thingybob.
Next week, probs towards the end, there'll be a jumbo Prism (108 pages!! 108 freaking pages people... for Prism, that's damn near illegal...) and a jumbo Dark Horizons (about 112 pages I think uncle Pete said. Or possibly 140. Probs somewhere inbetween...) DH is the 50th issue so they're doing something or other there. The Anne Sudworth cover is gorgeous (a bit horror-y, for which I'm sure there'll be the usual complaints from the horror bias obsessed crowd.).
But mainly, I'm just looking forward to having Prism out of my brain. And I don't have to mail it anymore! Tee hee!
Which means I can finish up the H&N wind up stuff, focus properly on Fcon and do other funky stuff...like finish up the Egyptology course, (which is a bit lightweight, so I've turned into something of an extra-credit junkie what with extra research and the like...) , then I can do a part time Uni course in October.
The course'll be a little scary as apparently it'll be equivalent to a first year undergraduate thingy and this from someone who didn't stay in school long enough to get GCSEs, let alone A levels... (got a couple of GCSEs and an A level Archaeology at night school years later, but that's by the by...) And since the uni course is archaeology/history thing with optional modules in art & architecture, it's not totally impossible. Plus, as it's adult ed, lack of formal qualifications is not a problem. Which is nice.
And in other news, the Evil Twin is moving back up north with her boyf. Probably around the Hook/Basingstoke area, and intends to join the family business for her main income (despite maintaining for years that she would never, ever, indulge!) So we've had to rework the office to accommodate her, and it means less work for me, (and less money, but I'd rather be skint and less stressed). May just drive me a bit potty though.
Harry Dresden
And I've just discovered the Harry Dresden phenomenon. Had flicked on the TV proggy the other week but wasn't overly bothered either way, but then Orbit send me a copy of the latest book in the series so I found a few hours spare to settle down and give it a go.
Proven Guilty is the 8th book in the series, so right off the bat there's the threat of missing backstory... and I wasn't too hopeful when it started off a tad slow. Then something clicked and I couldn't stop reading the damn thing.
Needless to say, I now think it's the hottest thing eva! Since the last hottest thing eva! :->
It picks up and speeds along from crisis to crisis to disaster to almost certain death and back again and a good portion of it is set in a horror film convention. Which was a bit of added fun.
The few back references to previous Dresden adventures don't impede on the enjoyment if you've not read them as it's easy to get the gist of what happened. And I love the politics between the various supernatural factions. And the hints of greater machinations. Truly excellent. And, of course, I now need to read the other 7. Like, now.
Ha hah! No more Prism for me!! Finally finished the March Prism last week (yeah, I know, it was supposed to have been the Feb Prism... but honestly, what else did you expect?) Sent off to the printers and it's sooooo out of my hands now! Vicky's on the mailings now which is beyond fabulous as I can now sit back and watch as Prisms magically appear in the letterbox!
Of course, this didn't happen without the usual run of disasters. This time, it was all the Fcon photos fault. Ok, so technically we're a few months late for doing an Fcon 2006 report, but there were a heap of other BFS AGM type stuff that needed to be published for the members so it seemed churlish not to add the Fcon report (a multi person deal with bits from Allen Ashley, Pete Coleborn, and Paul K & Marie O'R.) So the first batch of photos I had were from uncle Pete, and I'm sure that last time I fiddled with them they were fine... but alas, when I really needed them to work, just touching one of them froze up my machine to the extent where plugs and batteries had to be yanked before it would do anything.
Luckily, ace reporter Sandy A. takes bucketloads of photos so I had those. Except, after inserting every thirdish one, my poor machine crashed... cue many reboots. But it got there eventually.
So, this week our Vicky will be mailing out awards recs forms & an Fcon newsletter/progress reporter thingybob.
Next week, probs towards the end, there'll be a jumbo Prism (108 pages!! 108 freaking pages people... for Prism, that's damn near illegal...) and a jumbo Dark Horizons (about 112 pages I think uncle Pete said. Or possibly 140. Probs somewhere inbetween...) DH is the 50th issue so they're doing something or other there. The Anne Sudworth cover is gorgeous (a bit horror-y, for which I'm sure there'll be the usual complaints from the horror bias obsessed crowd.).
But mainly, I'm just looking forward to having Prism out of my brain. And I don't have to mail it anymore! Tee hee!
Which means I can finish up the H&N wind up stuff, focus properly on Fcon and do other funky stuff...like finish up the Egyptology course, (which is a bit lightweight, so I've turned into something of an extra-credit junkie what with extra research and the like...) , then I can do a part time Uni course in October.
The course'll be a little scary as apparently it'll be equivalent to a first year undergraduate thingy and this from someone who didn't stay in school long enough to get GCSEs, let alone A levels... (got a couple of GCSEs and an A level Archaeology at night school years later, but that's by the by...) And since the uni course is archaeology/history thing with optional modules in art & architecture, it's not totally impossible. Plus, as it's adult ed, lack of formal qualifications is not a problem. Which is nice.
And in other news, the Evil Twin is moving back up north with her boyf. Probably around the Hook/Basingstoke area, and intends to join the family business for her main income (despite maintaining for years that she would never, ever, indulge!) So we've had to rework the office to accommodate her, and it means less work for me, (and less money, but I'd rather be skint and less stressed). May just drive me a bit potty though.
Harry Dresden
And I've just discovered the Harry Dresden phenomenon. Had flicked on the TV proggy the other week but wasn't overly bothered either way, but then Orbit send me a copy of the latest book in the series so I found a few hours spare to settle down and give it a go.
Proven Guilty is the 8th book in the series, so right off the bat there's the threat of missing backstory... and I wasn't too hopeful when it started off a tad slow. Then something clicked and I couldn't stop reading the damn thing.
Needless to say, I now think it's the hottest thing eva! Since the last hottest thing eva! :->
It picks up and speeds along from crisis to crisis to disaster to almost certain death and back again and a good portion of it is set in a horror film convention. Which was a bit of added fun.
The few back references to previous Dresden adventures don't impede on the enjoyment if you've not read them as it's easy to get the gist of what happened. And I love the politics between the various supernatural factions. And the hints of greater machinations. Truly excellent. And, of course, I now need to read the other 7. Like, now.
20 March 2007
12 February 2007
Fork
This probably comes as no surprise at all to anyone but H&N is well and truly dead. I'm attempting to email everyone about stuff today. So, subscriptions will be refunded shortly, other outstanding bits and pieces will be well and truly sorted by the end of this month. If you've concerns you might be forgotten, please email the majorarcana (jen[at] majorarcana [dot] demon [dot] co [dot] uk ) address and copy in isisdirect [at] aol [dot] com.
Issue 8 will not be going ahead. I'd hoped otherwise, I really did, but there's just no way.
Huge apologies to all those who've be hanging on waiting to hear about submissions - I'd been certain things were going to be otherwise, but they weren't so it's not fair to anyone to keep things up in the air like this.
BFS bits
Also, Prism is getting new editors as from April - Jay & Selina being the more capable hands. And Vicky is taking over various BFS mailing and cyberstore duties. Bless her.
So all I've got to do is sort out the Feb Prism and I'm done there too.
(Still doing Fcon, though.)
Other bits
So Demon, or possibly BT Surftime are changing their bloody packages again. Bastards. This would be the blatantly obvious attempt to get everyone on to bloody broadband else face paying by the minute again. I don't want to go on to broadband, I've heard nothing but bad from all sorts of people using all sorts of different packages. Bastards bastards bastards. Possibly I'm over-reacting due to being permanently pissed off at the moment. Or possibly I'm just a luddite... Mind, swapping to a new ISP might actually be a bonus, given various problems, and if nothing else it may stop the ridiculous prawn spam levels that have started flooding in again. Ah well, got 'til March to sort that one.
Whinge whinge whinge.
Department of Work Avoidance
Lets Go!
Department of Work Avoidance II
When Fangirls Attack!
Pretty, Fizzy Paradise
Stressed, depressed & terminally jaded, signing off...
This probably comes as no surprise at all to anyone but H&N is well and truly dead. I'm attempting to email everyone about stuff today. So, subscriptions will be refunded shortly, other outstanding bits and pieces will be well and truly sorted by the end of this month. If you've concerns you might be forgotten, please email the majorarcana (jen
Issue 8 will not be going ahead. I'd hoped otherwise, I really did, but there's just no way.
Huge apologies to all those who've be hanging on waiting to hear about submissions - I'd been certain things were going to be otherwise, but they weren't so it's not fair to anyone to keep things up in the air like this.
BFS bits
Also, Prism is getting new editors as from April - Jay & Selina being the more capable hands. And Vicky is taking over various BFS mailing and cyberstore duties. Bless her.
So all I've got to do is sort out the Feb Prism and I'm done there too.
(Still doing Fcon, though.)
Other bits
So Demon, or possibly BT Surftime are changing their bloody packages again. Bastards. This would be the blatantly obvious attempt to get everyone on to bloody broadband else face paying by the minute again. I don't want to go on to broadband, I've heard nothing but bad from all sorts of people using all sorts of different packages. Bastards bastards bastards. Possibly I'm over-reacting due to being permanently pissed off at the moment. Or possibly I'm just a luddite... Mind, swapping to a new ISP might actually be a bonus, given various problems, and if nothing else it may stop the ridiculous prawn spam levels that have started flooding in again. Ah well, got 'til March to sort that one.
Whinge whinge whinge.
Department of Work Avoidance
Lets Go!
Department of Work Avoidance II
When Fangirls Attack!
Pretty, Fizzy Paradise
Stressed, depressed & terminally jaded, signing off...
05 February 2007
Remind me not to be optimistic. It's lethal.
For various reasons I've been mostly offline since November (eek!) ... I won't bore you with why, (think the usual reasons, plus a few more for added spice) - it's too depressing and I'm trying to keep to a mostly upbeat blog...
Updates on that H&N thing (Hi Fran, thanks for reminding me, thought I'd done it!) & misc. BFS things another time. Later this week, maybe. I've got masses of end of month accounts to sort first else I'm getting evicted.
Apart from that... happy things to blather about... hmm, tricky... give me a minute, something'll occur... erm, the last Lucifer graphic novel is due out shortly, likewise the latest Fables... and Resi Evil 3 is still set for coming out this year, so that'll be nice... :-> (You can tell I'm really reaching here, can't you!)
Erm... snow! Okay, so it was last month, but how (briefly) cool was that!
Erm... erm... oh, just heard the Fcon hotel have a small room they're going to give us for free so we're double & triple streaming this year with more workshop type things and I wasn't going to do BFS stuff today so I'll stop...
Ugly Betty! Not a great TV watcher as a rule (who has the time!) , but Ugly Betty rocks!
Other people. That's always more cheerful... so that mother person has started up yet another new business - chiropody (cue cries of 'why would you want to play with manky feet all day?' apparently she enjoys it!) - of course, there's still the massive family business to be looking after so guess who gets lumbered while madam is doing unmentionable things to old people's toes... ok, so probably not a good topic to go into after all...
Magic Rob! That's always fun. Magic Rob is Evil Twin's other half - a gigantic 7ft tall guy (who makes her look like like a pygmy in comparison... and we're not a tall family to start off with...) and they had their first Xmas together this year (aah!) So in a carefully calculated fit, he threw in his job as a financial advisor and has taken to doing his magician thing full time... (mind, he did start off wanting to do mentallist magic, but childrens parties is where the money is...). And he has puppets! A duck and a dog, apparently. Both with the same name, because, according to himself, only one gets to make an appearance at a gig so it doesn't matter.
Luckily, it seems to be going quite well but they're currently considering moving up nearer the M3/M4 corridor as the money is better this way (whereas, down in Blandford, it's fair to crap.)
Enough. Burnt out.
For various reasons I've been mostly offline since November (eek!) ... I won't bore you with why, (think the usual reasons, plus a few more for added spice) - it's too depressing and I'm trying to keep to a mostly upbeat blog...
Updates on that H&N thing (Hi Fran, thanks for reminding me, thought I'd done it!) & misc. BFS things another time. Later this week, maybe. I've got masses of end of month accounts to sort first else I'm getting evicted.
Apart from that... happy things to blather about... hmm, tricky... give me a minute, something'll occur... erm, the last Lucifer graphic novel is due out shortly, likewise the latest Fables... and Resi Evil 3 is still set for coming out this year, so that'll be nice... :-> (You can tell I'm really reaching here, can't you!)
Erm... snow! Okay, so it was last month, but how (briefly) cool was that!
Erm... erm... oh, just heard the Fcon hotel have a small room they're going to give us for free so we're double & triple streaming this year with more workshop type things and I wasn't going to do BFS stuff today so I'll stop...
Ugly Betty! Not a great TV watcher as a rule (who has the time!) , but Ugly Betty rocks!
Other people. That's always more cheerful... so that mother person has started up yet another new business - chiropody (cue cries of 'why would you want to play with manky feet all day?' apparently she enjoys it!) - of course, there's still the massive family business to be looking after so guess who gets lumbered while madam is doing unmentionable things to old people's toes... ok, so probably not a good topic to go into after all...
Magic Rob! That's always fun. Magic Rob is Evil Twin's other half - a gigantic 7ft tall guy (who makes her look like like a pygmy in comparison... and we're not a tall family to start off with...) and they had their first Xmas together this year (aah!) So in a carefully calculated fit, he threw in his job as a financial advisor and has taken to doing his magician thing full time... (mind, he did start off wanting to do mentallist magic, but childrens parties is where the money is...). And he has puppets! A duck and a dog, apparently. Both with the same name, because, according to himself, only one gets to make an appearance at a gig so it doesn't matter.
Luckily, it seems to be going quite well but they're currently considering moving up nearer the M3/M4 corridor as the money is better this way (whereas, down in Blandford, it's fair to crap.)
Enough. Burnt out.
04 November 2006
To Nanowrimo or not to Nanowrimo, that was the question. On the one hand, with stacks of outstanding stuff to do should one spend a month frantically writing 50,000 words of variable quality just because it sounds like a fun thing to do; or should one ignore the whole thing and use the excuse of non existent spare time?
Well, the clocks went back, which means waking up earlier, so more time in the morning to get things done, which means new optimism for achieving things... so you guess!
*
Went to the Heffers in Cambridge thingy the other night (spent all yesterday recovering!) and it was a great li'l event. Lovely BFS authors were there and as friendly as always, other authors were there too - had the beginnings of a nice chat with Mike Carey about Lucifer but got struck down by the usual forgetting everything about everything, else I'd have drifted into Hellblazer chat too (but couldn't remember if he'd done any, even though I kinda thought he had...)
Had many many books bought for me as November is birthday month so the perfect excuse for a book binge. (Though I'm not going to have much time to read them until after Xmas! Yipes!)
Had most of the books signed, too! I never get books signed. I was in shock!
Also had the opportunity to bounce ideas about next years potential Reading BFS thingy. First couple of weeks of July was suggested as a good time. Venue, possibly, to be Reading Town Hall as there's a bunch of (reasonably priced, according to my expert) function rooms, plus it has its own cafe/bar, plus it's in the next street from the station so there's fairly easy transport links. We've got a BFS committee meet on the 18th so will be thrashing things out then.
Personally, would love to have a Reading event of any sort (alas, no Fcon in Reading as the only 2 suitable hotels are being asses about the accomodation rates...)
Oh, talking of events, did you hear that Eastercon '07 in Liverpool has been cancelled. There's mumblings about someone emergency organising a scaled down Eastercon , possibly in the Britannia in Docklands. Thought it's all theoretical at the moment, I think.
Ansible has the best updated info on it, as well as links to related news...
Well, the clocks went back, which means waking up earlier, so more time in the morning to get things done, which means new optimism for achieving things... so you guess!
*
Went to the Heffers in Cambridge thingy the other night (spent all yesterday recovering!) and it was a great li'l event. Lovely BFS authors were there and as friendly as always, other authors were there too - had the beginnings of a nice chat with Mike Carey about Lucifer but got struck down by the usual forgetting everything about everything, else I'd have drifted into Hellblazer chat too (but couldn't remember if he'd done any, even though I kinda thought he had...)
Had many many books bought for me as November is birthday month so the perfect excuse for a book binge. (Though I'm not going to have much time to read them until after Xmas! Yipes!)
Had most of the books signed, too! I never get books signed. I was in shock!
Also had the opportunity to bounce ideas about next years potential Reading BFS thingy. First couple of weeks of July was suggested as a good time. Venue, possibly, to be Reading Town Hall as there's a bunch of (reasonably priced, according to my expert) function rooms, plus it has its own cafe/bar, plus it's in the next street from the station so there's fairly easy transport links. We've got a BFS committee meet on the 18th so will be thrashing things out then.
Personally, would love to have a Reading event of any sort (alas, no Fcon in Reading as the only 2 suitable hotels are being asses about the accomodation rates...)
Oh, talking of events, did you hear that Eastercon '07 in Liverpool has been cancelled. There's mumblings about someone emergency organising a scaled down Eastercon , possibly in the Britannia in Docklands. Thought it's all theoretical at the moment, I think.
Ansible has the best updated info on it, as well as links to related news...
15 October 2006
Ok, so not completely offline... need the stress relief...
And, as expected, holiday cover has already driven me beyond batty... seems to get worse every time they go...
On the bright side, waiting for tenants to finish moving out (dudes! you knew what time you had to be out... the appointment was booked months ago!) and waiting for them to turn up (ditto!) does give plenty of time to catch up on the for-fun reading...
So I've managed to read both Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House (v. good, though not quite as scary as I'd been led to believe. Great storytelling, though.) and Stan Nicholl's Orcs Omnibus... a comment on the BFS forum said the books were improved by having them all together in the omnibus edition, and I agree... but then, most series are better if you can binge read them...
Anything else not biz related I haven't had a chance to look at in great detail yet... got an offer for help for the next batch of H&N submission reading, which is fab. (Thanks mate!)
Sorted out piles of things that need dealing with... (including the shock revelation that the income tax self assessment deadline was 30th September! Yipes! Missed that one...)
Had to wake up briefly to deal with some complete arse and their totally incorrect claims and rants... which just gets a tad wearing...
Robin Hood eppy 2 was marginally better than eppy 1. Which isn't saying much. Good god, people, it can be done miles better than that...
Saw a trailer for eppy 2 of Torchwood (yay!) on Youtube somewhere - looks fun!
Had a frantic moment when I thought I'd broken the business mobile... (the boss'd kill me!) but seems to be working ok now...
Hating the Reading roads with a passion... they've started fiddling around ready for this reworking of the IDR they reckon they're going to do (idiots!) so a couple of main access roads have now been bus-lane-ised and there's only one route out of Reading. Which is a terrible road. Terrible. And if you want to get to Caversham (where one of our other main agents is based... also there's a not bad independent bookshop that way...) there's, like, 1 decent road to use now... and of course everyone uses it... and getting to the agents in Reading is almost as nightmarish as finding parking for them...
I'm a Wokingham girl, me. Really. Despite quirks in the address, Lower Earley is technically in the Wokingham district. (Don't ask me what that's about... we pay taxes to Wokingham, but Royal Mail has us down as Reading...) And it's a lovely little town (used to have my market stall there... and hated it as no bugger ever spent anything! And I'm a lousy saleswoman. Y'know, if you don't want it, I'm not going to force you into it... ) and the roads and the parking is nice and civilised.
Just give me the amazing power of teleportation and my life would be sooo much easier... :->
And, as expected, holiday cover has already driven me beyond batty... seems to get worse every time they go...
On the bright side, waiting for tenants to finish moving out (dudes! you knew what time you had to be out... the appointment was booked months ago!) and waiting for them to turn up (ditto!) does give plenty of time to catch up on the for-fun reading...
So I've managed to read both Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House (v. good, though not quite as scary as I'd been led to believe. Great storytelling, though.) and Stan Nicholl's Orcs Omnibus... a comment on the BFS forum said the books were improved by having them all together in the omnibus edition, and I agree... but then, most series are better if you can binge read them...
Anything else not biz related I haven't had a chance to look at in great detail yet... got an offer for help for the next batch of H&N submission reading, which is fab. (Thanks mate!)
Sorted out piles of things that need dealing with... (including the shock revelation that the income tax self assessment deadline was 30th September! Yipes! Missed that one...)
Had to wake up briefly to deal with some complete arse and their totally incorrect claims and rants... which just gets a tad wearing...
Robin Hood eppy 2 was marginally better than eppy 1. Which isn't saying much. Good god, people, it can be done miles better than that...
Saw a trailer for eppy 2 of Torchwood (yay!) on Youtube somewhere - looks fun!
Had a frantic moment when I thought I'd broken the business mobile... (the boss'd kill me!) but seems to be working ok now...
Hating the Reading roads with a passion... they've started fiddling around ready for this reworking of the IDR they reckon they're going to do (idiots!) so a couple of main access roads have now been bus-lane-ised and there's only one route out of Reading. Which is a terrible road. Terrible. And if you want to get to Caversham (where one of our other main agents is based... also there's a not bad independent bookshop that way...) there's, like, 1 decent road to use now... and of course everyone uses it... and getting to the agents in Reading is almost as nightmarish as finding parking for them...
I'm a Wokingham girl, me. Really. Despite quirks in the address, Lower Earley is technically in the Wokingham district. (Don't ask me what that's about... we pay taxes to Wokingham, but Royal Mail has us down as Reading...) And it's a lovely little town (used to have my market stall there... and hated it as no bugger ever spent anything! And I'm a lousy saleswoman. Y'know, if you don't want it, I'm not going to force you into it... ) and the roads and the parking is nice and civilised.
Just give me the amazing power of teleportation and my life would be sooo much easier... :->
11 October 2006
Hold that thought...
Shall be completely offline and not even haunting the usual online places for the next week due to reasons of:
a) necessary finishing off of outstanding catch up work... (almost beaten the submissions!)
and
b) it's that horrible time of year when I get sole charge of the family biz while everyone else nicks off to Lanza-grotty for some sun... (honestly, they already did a week back in, what, May was it? 2 in one year's just greedy!)
...not that I mind the people going off on hols bit... it's the bloody estate agents and landlords and tenants and rebellious staff and emergency last minute we need it first thing tomorrow morning jobs... and having to answer calls from 7.30am to 8pm, 7 days a week...and the paperwork... god, you wouldn't believe the paperwork... keeps you working til late night, gets you started early morning ... drives you utterly mental... and I do not want to be spending my evening arguing with a tenant about why they have to pay for the whacking great hole they kicked in someone's wall because the estate agent is too chicken to do it... or explaining over and over to the landlord why they can't charge the tenant for a new carpet because of a couple of minor marks on an ancient and already ratty pre-existing floor, because the agent is too chicken to do it... (hmm, a trend emerges...)
Chanting for a quiet week... (oh please, oh please, let it be a quiet week this time... nothing like the bloody chaos of the last time... quiet... calm.... quiet... calm...)
Shall be completely offline and not even haunting the usual online places for the next week due to reasons of:
a) necessary finishing off of outstanding catch up work... (almost beaten the submissions!)
and
b) it's that horrible time of year when I get sole charge of the family biz while everyone else nicks off to Lanza-grotty for some sun... (honestly, they already did a week back in, what, May was it? 2 in one year's just greedy!)
...not that I mind the people going off on hols bit... it's the bloody estate agents and landlords and tenants and rebellious staff and emergency last minute we need it first thing tomorrow morning jobs... and having to answer calls from 7.30am to 8pm, 7 days a week...and the paperwork... god, you wouldn't believe the paperwork... keeps you working til late night, gets you started early morning ... drives you utterly mental... and I do not want to be spending my evening arguing with a tenant about why they have to pay for the whacking great hole they kicked in someone's wall because the estate agent is too chicken to do it... or explaining over and over to the landlord why they can't charge the tenant for a new carpet because of a couple of minor marks on an ancient and already ratty pre-existing floor, because the agent is too chicken to do it... (hmm, a trend emerges...)
Chanting for a quiet week... (oh please, oh please, let it be a quiet week this time... nothing like the bloody chaos of the last time... quiet... calm.... quiet... calm...)
07 October 2006
More Fcon blather
So one of the (as yet unnamed) GoHs we were relatively sure of getting, probably won't be able to (ironic, given that the date we chose was because that was his only free weekend next September... )
So now we argue about who else to get in, and it's fun and it's frustrating and just how do you choose who'll make the best guest?
There's economics... you want a guest that will tip people over from 'meh' to 'ooh, just got to go to see X' so you want someone bordering on interstellar...
But what if the author you really adore isn't quite interstellar? How do you decide who's big and who isn't?
What if the not so interstellar one will be better entertainment?
And then there's keeping balances. Between horror and fantasy. Between
the ones that might possibly be at Fcon anyway and those that wouldn't. Between the ones you love and the ones you've not heard of but rumour has it they could be good.
And then there's the interesting point of non author guests. If we're really to cover the full lot what about comics guests or artist guests or media guests or editor guests? There's a limit to the amount of people we can afford to have a GoHs, so do we go for a bunch of authors, or delicately balance the authors with the others?
And that's without the tricky business of overseas guests...
So one of the (as yet unnamed) GoHs we were relatively sure of getting, probably won't be able to (ironic, given that the date we chose was because that was his only free weekend next September... )
So now we argue about who else to get in, and it's fun and it's frustrating and just how do you choose who'll make the best guest?
There's economics... you want a guest that will tip people over from 'meh' to 'ooh, just got to go to see X' so you want someone bordering on interstellar...
But what if the author you really adore isn't quite interstellar? How do you decide who's big and who isn't?
What if the not so interstellar one will be better entertainment?
And then there's keeping balances. Between horror and fantasy. Between
the ones that might possibly be at Fcon anyway and those that wouldn't. Between the ones you love and the ones you've not heard of but rumour has it they could be good.
And then there's the interesting point of non author guests. If we're really to cover the full lot what about comics guests or artist guests or media guests or editor guests? There's a limit to the amount of people we can afford to have a GoHs, so do we go for a bunch of authors, or delicately balance the authors with the others?
And that's without the tricky business of overseas guests...
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