How amusing. Neil Gaiman got a l33t message and a fan translated it for him.
Thought the translation (liberal in places) would be interesting to those of you who were teasing me about knowing how to read it. Okay, I actually thought you’d laugh too.
And damn, I completely and totally forgot that Gaiman had written a short story called The Daughter of Owls, found in the Smoke and Mirrors collection. This makes me feel incredibly guilty and a right twit.
I currently have a black fairy kitten between my keyboard and my monitor as I alternately tear my hair out over editing an author’s most recent batch of chapters, and eavesdropping on what’s going on at the Firnost Freehold chatroom so I don’t completely lose my mind. Nixie has been helping by smacking the pointer every once in a while as it flies around the screen. I think she wants to play Changeling too, but it would take too long for her to make a character.
Watching Roo interact with others, and being cuted out by Nix are the only things keeping me sane at the moment. There; she just patted the text as I typed. Painfully cute.
I just got a parcel from my parents in the mail. In it was the manual that goes with my printer.
Now that I know what all the buttons mean, I can photocopy. Thank you, gods!
And thank you, Mum, for the January treat!
Update: Aha. If I don’t click on the black & white button, the copier assumes it’s in colour – even if the original is b&w. And I end up with green music to practice with. Well, it’s, um… different.
Okay, fine. Here. New template.
This ought not to have been as much of a headache as it turned out to be.
One of the worst things about the holidays is one’s perception and understanding of how the week is structured gets all messed up.
For example: today I am firmly convinced that it is Monday. I keep thinking that I have nothing scheduled for tonight. This misperception is further supported by the fact that a new gaming group gathered yesterday, and has chosen Sunday nights to meet. If we meet on Sundays, yesterday must have been Sunday, and today, perforce, must be Monday.
In fact, today is Friday, and I teach a class tonight.
The crazy thing is I thought that it was Monday last Tuesday as well. As Monday technically signals the beginning of my weekend, this suggests to me that I’ve been working too much. Freelance writers don’t get paid vacations, however. Nor do freelance teachers. And in the midst of rearranging and end-of-year cleaning I still have to fit in a final edit of three chapters given to me over a week ago by the publisher, a first edit of a new teaching workbook, and those three book reviews, all before Monday, as well as teaching four three-hour classes.
No rest for the weary. So naturally, I am work-avoiding by blogging and doing web work.
I now have a bulletin board by my desk. It’s pinned with story mission postcards dating back from last summer, and index cards with what I’m certain seem like random words to my husband (such as “Ben?” and “Good Book”). Projects with deadlines are written on pink index cards (for example, the three book reviews I’ve agreed to write that are due next Monday – argh).
It helps.
Have I mentioned that I love my new printer? Apart from actually printing (a definite improvement over the last one), it’s quiet, and it doesn’t consume mass quantities of ink for no reason. It does indeed print on both sides of the page, by printing every second page then instructing you to flip the stack over and re-insert it in the paper feed in order to print the alternate pages on the reverse side. Smart little thing.
Balsamic Moon was, of course, the first thing that was printed. And By Many Other Names was the next project. The colour title pages I designed for both novels was next (the balance of the colour inks seem a bit odd, but I can deal with that), as were the winner’s certificates. Then they were both taken downtown and bound in hardcover. I was warned not to open them for at least 24 hours to allow the binding to cure, and the suspense is killing me. They’re currently shelved between my thesis and the three-volume anthology of short stories on a common theme written by me, t!, and Tal.
And… Ceri’s Yule gift is now complete. Muah-hah-hah-hah. Hey, better late than never. (And no, Ceri, it has nothing to do with my printer, or hardcover binding. You’ll see.)
I am proud to announce that I am now the owner of a fully-functional Xerox XJ35c laserjet printer/scanner workcentre. Hugs and kisses and tears of relief to old family friends Dorothy and Greg for allowing me to take it off their hands.
And now? Well, I’ve been obsessing about a printer because my need to write has been building up inside me once again. In fact, at my parents’ house over the holidays I found my completed fantasy novel tucked away on my laptop and began to edit it – from the last chapter in order to avoid the problematic first chapters which have been edited several times without satisfactory results. This novel has been finished for about a decade, and going back to it with fresh eyes I can now see that it isn’t as bad as I expected it to be. Sure, it’s very definitely a first novel, and requires help; but overall, there’s great dialogue, good pacing, and interesting flawed characters. I wanted to keep on writing Crossroads, but apparently I haven’t transcribed the pages and pages of hand-written work I did in the Second Cup this summer. And, of course, the legal-sized notebook with those pages in it was at home. Sigh.
A printer isn’t necessary for writing or editing, but it certainly makes my life so much easier. Balsamic Moon will be the first thing printed out, once I take an hour this afternoon to fix a certain passage in chapter five. In fact, I’m about to sit down with a cup of tea and make a list of all the writing-connected things I want to do. Then I’m going to acquire a small bulletin board and pin them up individually, as t! has done for years, in order to have the satisfaction of taking each one down as they’re completed.
I love my new printer. Apparently there’s a double-sided page option, which I discovered as I poked about in Properties (there is, alas, no manual as of yet). I’m definitely going to play with it later this afternoon and poke various buttons to discover the miracles hidden within.
I have a printer, thank all the gods. It shouldn’t feel this good.