30 December 2015

2015 in review

2015 hasn't been terribly eventful.

I ran another Shatterdome Atlanta, which happened and people had fun. I went to my brother-in-law's wedding on Orcas Island, which took literally all day to get to from here (we had a 7 am flight and landed in Seattle at 1:30 pm and rented a car and drove 2 hours to the ferry, waited another hour + for the boat, then took the half-hour ferry to the island, and then had to drive to the other side of the island to the location, so we arrived around 9:30 pm, which felt like midnight to us, after a really long day.)

I started taking Russian at UNC. It's an interesting language, with a few bits of grammatical WTFery for speakers of Germanic languages (which includes English). A friend said I shouldn't learn it because it's too hard, but I said "pfff" and am doing it anyway. I got an A in 101, and I expect to get one in 102 as well. Going to the class eats 10-12 hours a week, plus another 4-5 of homework. I live half an hour from campus, but I use free parking that's not exactly close to campus, so I take a bus from there.

As to the goals I mentioned in last year's review... I accomplished two and a half. I ran a 5k (36:15), successfully chaired a convention, and made a small dent in my reading backlog. I have not sold a story (not for lack of trying...37 submissions, 37 rejections), and the novel is not in anything resembling a shoppable state (which is entirely my fault; I started learning Russian, which eats up a lot of time.) I'm working on it over winter break, but I still don't think I'll get it ready before classes start again.

I taught some German this year; after May, there was a lot of summer travel, so my whole 3 students and I said we'd reconvene toward fall. And there wasn't enough interest to make a class, so no class.

I read more. I even read books that were published this year! Naomi Novik's Uprooted, Ann Leckie's Ancillary Mercy, and Zen Cho's Sorcerer to the Crown. I liked the first one a lot, the second one a lot, and the third one OK.

For 2016, I'm going to keep trying to sell these stories, keep finishing this damned novel, and start figuring out the next one.

14 July 2015

Whirlwind summer

I've been busy this summer. I spent 4 days in Atlanta for Shatterdome Atlanta 2 (jaeger boogaloo), was home for two days, then flew out to Seattle for my brother-in-law's wedding on Orcas Island, whence his wife hails, to be gone for five days. So we were gone nine of eleven days.

The con was fun, and the wedding was in a lovely location.
view from Doe Bay Resort, Orcas Island, WA.

Sunset over Doe Bay

After that, I spent a blissful two weeks without any travel at all, doing my usual things, like sleeping and running and going to trivia. Then it was off to Boston for Readercon.

I had a lovely time at Readercon, seeing my VP17 folks and people from the internet and meeting new people. I didn't get enough sleep, but I never do at cons. I liked having conversations about books and writing and reading and all that stuff, which I don't generally get to do with my local friend group.

I bought three books at the con: Hild (I'm catching up on books I needed to read two years ago that have sequels in progress), My Real Children (on the recommendation of several friends), and The Goblin Emperor (so I can have it forever and also get Ben to read it.)

I went to several panels, some of which I even managed to take notes on. I tend to find that I plan to go to a bunch of panels, then I get waylaid by excellent conversation in the hallway or consuite or bar. Either way, I have fun, eh?

Here are links to the Evernote notes I made of the panels I went to. Hopefully they work...

Drift-compatible Characters in SFF
Writing in the anthropocene
Language and Linguistics in SFF: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

They are very note-y, as I was typing them with my thumbs on a tablet, and also trying to pay attention to the speakers. The anthropocene panel had mic issues, so I may not have heard everything properly.

Anyway! I may be able to make it to ReaderCon next year, or I may try to go to 4th Street instead. (I can't afford both.) It depends on a lot of things, like how my summer travel plans shake out and when SATL 3 happens. That kind of thing.

18 March 2015

Time marches on

(it's a pun. laugh.)

Right, then. I have the physical certificate for the teaching course in hand, so I am all official on this thing. Woot! I'm teaching my third class at the language school, and it seems to be going well.

My sister had a baby about a month ago, so I have a niece. I crocheted a blanket for her, and it worked out well. My sister texted me a picture of the baby on the blanket.

I have a short story that I'm thinking of self-publishing. I can export it as an epub in five minutes with Scrivener, but I need a cover and all that. I'm also thinking of making some copies at kinkos and selling a print version at cons I go to. It's 5000 words, so it would be folded letter-size.

But I'll deal with that later. Right now I'm supposed to be finishing the revisions on this novel (the one that expands "Something There Is"). My original goal was this Friday, but I have 10 chapters left, and that's looking highly unlikely. Next Friday, then. And then it's off to beta readers. Yay.

Shatterdome Atlanta 2: Jaeger Boogaloo will be happening in three months (oh god).

After I finish novel revisions, I'm working on a secret project (secret because I don't want to talk about it too publicly in case nothing comes of it; a lot of you probably already know what I'm talking about anyway) and con planning, and when I have spare brain cycles, figuring out what the next novel I'm writing is about AND working on the synopsis & query letter and researching agents for the current one.

But that's a ways off yet, so I'm not thinking about it too hard at the moment.