I’ve done memes like this before, and this is a good time for me to do one again. I got this one from wild_irises. (Pardon the silly question–can someone tell me how to make these lj links? Is it possible to do these if I’m blogging on my own site? I know how to link but not how to make it look all nifty and lj.)

Leave a comment here and I will:

1. Tell you why I friended you.
2. Associate you with something – fandom, a song, a color, a photo, etc.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Ask either something I’ve always wanted to know about you or a random question.

You can post this in your own LJ if you feel like it.

Body: *wakes me up* Go eat some tortilla chips.
Me: *sleepy* What now?
Body: Tortilla chips. I won’t let you sleep until you eat some.
Me: Tortilla chips? Uh, body, are you sure about that? All you’ve had today is some vanilla ice cream and you weren’t totally happy about that. You sure you want to try tortilla chips?
Body: Yes. Get up now.

I’d rather still be asleep. But I ate a few tortilla chips. Stopped very quickly. Either my body was wrong or lying to me.

Edited to add:  Or maybe it was right.  I followed up with a roll and a piece of string cheese.  YAY.

Sucks to be me, at least today and last night. 😦

Just signed a contract, so here’s the press release:

PanGaia Magazine and Llewellyn Publications Announce Pagan Fiction Award Finalists

Finalists to appear in Pagan Anthology of Short Fiction St. Paul, MN, November 20, 2007 – PanGaia Magazine and Llewellyn Publications are pleased to announce the finalists from the Pagan Fiction Award contest. All stories announced as finalists will appear The Pagan Anthology of Short Fiction: 13 Prize-Winning Tales, to be published by Llewellyn in October 2008.

Top score earners, listed alphabetically by title:

“The Bitter Herbs of Camelot,” A.C. Fisher Aldag
“Black Doe,” Vylar Kaftan
“Dead and (Mostly) Gone,” Deborah Blake
“Draw Down,” Alex Bledsoe
“From Our Minds to Yours,” C.S. MacCath
“A Nose for Magic,” Eugie Foster
“The Rune Hag’s Daughter,” Linda Steele
“Seabird,” Paula R. Stiles
“Selk River,” Melodie Bolt
“Silkie’s Diary,” A.C. Fisher Aldag
“Under a Double Rainbow,” Sophie Mouette
“A Valkyrie Among Jews,” April
“We Have Come Home,” A.L. Waldron

First, second, and third prize winners chosen from this list of finalists will be announced at PantheaCon, taking place in San Jose, California February 15-18, 2008; authors of finalist stories are encouraged to attend. Certificates will be issued to honor all of the finalists, including the three winners.

“We congratulate these authors for their exemplary contributions to Pagan literature,” said Anne Newkirk Niven, Editor-in-Chief of BBI Media. “We also thank all the other entrants for participating in the contest; we received many wonderful stories, and we appreciate the enthusiasm for pagan fiction.”

About Llewellyn Publications
Llewellyn is the oldest and largest independent New Age publisher in the United States, celebrating over a century of publishing books on such subjects as mysticism, alternative health, self-help, divination, astrology, tarot, the paranormal, paganism, goddess lore, Wicca and magick. Llewellyn is proud to support new Pagan literature.

About BBI Media
BBI Media is the leading publisher of Pagan and Goddess-affirming magazines in North America, with three quarterly titles — newWitch, PanGaia, and SageWoman — reaching over 200,000 readers each year. BBI is proud to provide the cash prizes to the Pagan fiction award winners, and to support Pagan short fiction through both this contest and by publishing Pagan short fiction in PanGaia and newWitch.

So I picked up a Nintendo DS Lite as a treat for myself. One of the games I got was Sims 2: Pets.

I’ve liked previous Sims games, so this seemed like a good plan.  Like previous games, I’m so terribly soft-hearted that I can’t bear watching my Sims suffer.  Although on some level it’s funny to watch a Sim open the fridge six times and then wet themselves, I keep getting caught up in Simworld and becoming very anxious about my characters.

In Sims 2: Pets, you play a veterinarian who takes care of the neighborhood pets. As usual, there’s a learning curve at the beginning which means I make some mistakes.

1.  I have a kitten which I named Fizzy.  Fizzy lives in the kennel with the other animals that I’m treating.  I noticed an option called “store” which I thought might take me to the shopping screen.  Nope.  Fizzy vanished.  So I put my kitten into storage and can’t find him.  Oh dear.  I’m worried there will be a nasty smell from the heating ducts in a few days.  (addendum: I found Fizzy.  He’s in my pocket… or my Bag of Holding more likely.  Yes, that’s a kitten in my pocket, and I’m happy to see you.)

2.  The animals all hate me. I think I have to buy a better pet-brush, because they whimper and squirm all over the examination table when I try to groom them.  We won’t even talk about how much they hate the flea bath.

3.  Cats and dogs appear to have the same tricks, so they only differ in appearance.  This means that like the dogs, the cats can fetch, roll over, and dance on command.  What strange alien cats have we here?  (Shannon says cats absolutely can learn those tricks–they just don’t WANT to.)

4.  Broken bones heal in a few days, with proper care.  I guess SimPets are made of rubber or papier mache or something.

5.  The only thing my Sim doctor knows how to cook is a fried egg.  She’s eaten nothing else for two weeks straight.  Probably good for controlling blood sugar, but I’m a bit worried about her nutrition.

6.  X-rays are fun.  Unnecessary, repeated, pointless X-rays are doubly fun.  I expect these pets will have mutant babies.

Like other Sim games, it’s becoming more fun as I learn how to do things.  I wish the animals would stop crying when I treat them, though.

Daniel Ausema at The Fix liked “Scar Stories,” in the Bandersnatch anthology from Wildside Press:

Vylar Kaftan’s “Scar Stories” is quiet but effective. It begins with a dinner party where the guests tell the stories of their scars, and it builds as people begin sharing very personal stories of scars both physical and emotional. Soon, even inanimate objects are talking, eager to share their tales of being hurt. It’s a powerful piece.

James Killus at Unintentional Irony said this about “Kill Me” at Helix, along with Mike Allen’s story “The Button Bin”:

Both “The Button Bin” and “Kill Me” are psycho-sexual creepshows, and stand or fall on the creepiness factor, which is pretty high, so good on them.

And my review of the Trader Joe’s Candy Cane Joe-Joes, which are basically peppermint Oreos: YUM. Go buy some if you live near a Trader Joe’s.

…with robotic flexing power and a sturdy build.  Prefer a model that comes with cool synthetic muscles for my lower back.  Should allow me to go about daily activities without agonizing pain.  Multi-decade lifespan appreciated.  Bonus points if it comes in those cool rainbow colors like body jewelry.

My original spine will be flushed down the toilet.  I suspect the tiniest bit of pressure will snap it into pieces, allowing the vertebrae to enter the sewage system.  Failing that, I suppose that a spine sticking out of the toilet will be a great conversation starter.  But perhaps I should move into a two-bathroom place first.

The best 10 Choose Your Own Adventures books. Limited to the CYOA branded books, just to keep this list manageable. From tenth place to first place.

Honorable Mentions: #12 Inside UFO 54-40 for the picture of your legs splitting off your body and running away from you, #11 Mystery of the Maya for including human sacrifice in a children’s book, and #150 Who Are You? for a great concept (waking up with amnesia, and you’re the protagonist!). Another honorable mention for Ellen Kushner, who wrote 5 good CYOA books–and while none are in my top 10, all five are probably in my top 30 somewhere. All her books come later in the series, and most of them I read as an adult–which means I don’t have the nostalgia that I do about the ones I remember from childhood.

Which ones were your favorites?

My current day job is part-time, but unlike most jobs, it’s not every week. I work for Caption Colorado as an editor. As each financial quarter ends (Jan 15, Apr 15, Jul 15, Oct 15), all the big corporations hold earnings calls in which they announce how much money they’ve made and what their upcoming projects are. A captioner takes the call live and transcribes every word the speakers say. Then the transcript comes to me. My job is to make sure the transcriptionist captured every word verbatim, research spellings of company executives and products, and add grammar fixes where needed. This all happens real-time at a rapid speed. I get paid by the transcript, so it’s in my interest to get through them as quickly and efficiently as possible while still keeping quality high.

During earnings season, I often work 12 to 15 hours a day. Not really much time for writing.  In effect, I have 4 weeks on schedule, 8 weeks off schedule.

This wouldn’t work for every writer, but it’s terrific for me. Maybe it’s because I’m from an academic background, and the concept of “semesters” works well for me.  I love the uninterrupted 8 weeks to focus on my fiction.  The 4 weeks are pretty rough sometimes, but I just get through them the best I can. I know many writers are happiest when they write every day, but honestly I find that I’m more productive when I don’t write every day. Usually by the end of earnings season, I’m thrilled to return to writing — and at the end of an 8-week writing session, I have a hard deadline to get more stories into circulation.

Plus, it makes goal-setting easier when I have my time sectioned off this way. Speaking of… For this next 8-week segment, which starts this week, I plan to draft 4 new stories, revise 4 stories, and put 4 stories into circulation if possible. (These might be the same four stories, or I may count ones I have in a drafted state right now.)

I like posting my goals publicly because it makes me stick to them.

I think my posts are appearing both on my blog and LJ now.  Yes?

Thanks for the help, Mary Robinette and Shannon!