Wednesday books

Sep. 3rd, 2025 07:11 pm
redbird: full bookshelves and table in a library (books)
[personal profile] redbird
[personal profile] cattitude and [personal profile] adrian_turtle finished reading The Prisoner of Zenda--the original swash-buckling Ruritanian romance-- aloud to me and each other. We all had a lot of fun with it. We may (or may not) go back and read the sequel at some point, but not right away.

I also read The Birding Dictionary, by Rosemary Mosco: a humor book about bird and bird-watching, in the format of a dictionary. Cattitude, who borrowed this from the library, seemed to find it funnier than I did.

Current reading:

The Winged Histories, by Sofia Samatar. This is eight loosely connected stories, each with a different narrator. I'm enjoying it, but having trouble settling in to read much at a time. The ebook is now overdue at the library, so I am carefully not synching my kindle until I finish reading it.

Two poems!

Sep. 3rd, 2025 04:07 pm
swan_tower: (*writing)
[personal profile] swan_tower
I have not one but two new poems out this week! Putting me up to double digits in the number of poems I've had published so far, whee.

The first is in Merganser Magazine: "Hallucination," about AI, linguistics, and the wish for a better world.

The second, "Cutting the Cord" in Small Wonders, is probably the closest to straight-up science fiction I've ever written? It's got aliens and a space elevator in it, anyway.

Both are free to read online, so enjoy!
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] redbird
Governor Healey has overridden the CDC restrictions, and authorized pharmacists to give the covid vaccine to everyone over the age of 5 (younger children will have to get it from their pediatricians).

I heard about this first from my state senator's office: I emailed over the weekend to ask him to work on fixing this, so his staff knew I was interested. There's an article in the Globe, but pay-walled: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/03/metro/healey-covid-booster-massachusetts-trump-kennedy-vaccine/

unexpected excitement

Sep. 3rd, 2025 06:12 pm
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] redbird
First: we're all fine.

I got a phone call this afternoon from someone at the company we rent a storage unit from. She was calling to tell me that a construction crew doing something on the lot next door had last control of one of their machines, which breached the wall of our storage unit.

She was calling to tell me that, and to ask my permission to cut the lock on the door, so they can go inside and move everything to an undamaged unit. She wanted that ASAP, so they can start work tomorrow at 7 a.m.

I was on the bus when my phone rang, so while I could give her my approval right away, when she asked for my drivers license/state ID number, I told het I'd call her back, the information was hard to read on a moving bus

So, our plans for tomorrow now involve getting up early(ish) and going to Medford to look things over, and so the company can give us keys for the new lock.

I'm glad the phone was in my pocket when she called: otherwise I might not have noticed and listened to the voicemail before their office closed for the day.

Library Update #8: Camping

Sep. 3rd, 2025 03:15 pm
lovelyangel: (Eve Angel)
[personal profile] lovelyangel
Friday I received the construction schedule from my interior designer. Fortunately, in planning the schedule with the designer, I suggested a buffer week in case I couldn’t vacate the big room in time. She was smart and gave me a week and a half. Contractors will be on site starting Thursday, September 11 and continuing through Friday, October 3.

I need this week to get through all this stuff, a little bit at a time. Yesterday, I took down my Computer System and moved the essential subset of it into my bedroom. I packed away the vanity in my bedroom and went from a 3’ x 6’ desktop to a 16" x 4’ surface.

The core system includes only:
  • Belldandy; 2025 Mac Studio
  • LG 5k Thunderbolt display (backup unit)
  • Homura: OWC ThunderBlade 24TB SSD RAID
  • Sayaka: OWC Express 1M2 8TB SSD
  • Norie: HP Color LaserJet Pro M283fdw

Temporary Minimum Computer Setup
Temporary Minimum Computer Setup

Computer Camping )

Speaking of Naomi...

Sep. 2nd, 2025 05:43 pm
lydamorehouse: (Default)
[personal profile] lydamorehouse
 I wish I had thought to take a picture of the chickens, but I didn't.

Okay, context.  [personal profile] naomikritzer invited me to be her come-along friend to an experimental peach farm near Taylors Falls, Minnesota. For those of you not from around here, Minnesota is NOT typically peach country and people around here go absoutely SPARE for fresh peaches. There are entire forums full of people making runs to the south, gathering up fresh peaches, and making exchanges in sketchy parking lots. Okay, not EXACTLY, but dang near. I'm not one of these peach hounds, but Naomi is. So, she made arrangements with the farmer, Dan, to come get some fresh, directly off the tree peaches. Taylors Falls is about an hour away, so it's a long trip to go alone. So, of course, I volunteered!

Dan was absolutely charming. He had free range chickens who came out to see if we were interested in feeding them (We were! But we did not have food!) and then Dan had us follow him out to his greenhouses and he hand picked us some ripe peaches. Along the way he told us stories about his family and how he came to have a pizza oven on his poperty and how he feels like emphathy is something you need to clearly speak so that people know where you stand. 

We left with several pounds of peaches. 

I was glad I went.

What have you been up to?

Books read, late August

Sep. 2nd, 2025 04:46 pm
mrissa: (Default)
[personal profile] mrissa
 Pria Anand, The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains. This is the most like Oliver Sacks of anything I've read since Oliver Sacks died, and one of the ways in which that's the case is that Anand is writing from her own experience as a neurologist but also as someone who has gone through relevant symptoms and has a particular perspective, so: in the tradition of Sacks rather than attempting to clone him. If you like "weird things brains do oh goodness" stories, this will be your jam, and it sure was mine. Also Anand is meticulous about gender: if there are relevant studies that talk about the occurrence of a particular condition among trans women as compared to cis women, cis men, or trans men (or etc. with other groups in the spotlight), she will note them as clearly and calmly as she would something about cis women, treating it all as part of our composite picture of how the brain works and what affects it. Highly recommended.

Charlie Jane Anders, Lessons in Magic and Disaster. This book completely wrecked me. It's in some ways a gentle story about subtle and small-scale magic and about human relationships in our own structurally substantially unequal society. It's also about long-term grief where most stories that touch on grief are fairly short-term (months or 1-2 years) or muted somehow, and it's the only recent book I recall really delving into helping your parent with their grief while you, an adult, deal with your own differently-shaped grief for the same person. It's really beautifully done, I wanted to be doing nothing else but reading it once I started reading it, and also it was emotionally devastating in parts.

Scott Anderson, King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion, and Catastrophic Miscalculation. Sometimes I feel like the most confusing parts of history are not the really distant ones--who doesn't like a good Ea-Nasir joke--but the things that happened just before you arrived or as you're arriving. They're simultaneously foundational to a bunch of the world around you and happened while you weren't looking, in ways no one thinks to teach you formally. For me, born in 1978, the Iranian Revolution is one of those things, so when I spotted this on the library's new books table I picked it up immediately. This is a detailed history from someone who got to interview many of the Americans involved, and who is committed to not oversimplifying the benefits or detriments of the shah's reign. I could have wished for somewhat deeper Iranian history, though there was some, and stronger regional grounding, but also those things can be found elsewhere, it's all part of the process. The fact that there's an American flag on the cover of this book as well as an Iranian flag is not an accident. A book that was focusing on Iranian relations with for example France in this period would have a very different take.

Stephani Burgis, A Honeymoon of Grave Consequence. Discussed elsewhere.

Robert Darnton, A Literary Tour de France: The World of Books on the Eve of the French Revolution. This is a microhistory of booksellers and their job routes and wares in the pre-Revolutionary era. Of all of Darnton's books, I'd say this should be low on the list for people who are not deeply interested in the period, least of general interest. Luckily I am deeply interested in the period. So.

John M. Ford, From the End of the Twentieth Century. Reread. Satisfying in its own inimitable way. Those poor skazlorls.

Karen Joy Fowler, Black Glass. Reread. And the threads Karen was pulling out of the genre/literary conversation at the time were so different from the ones Mike did, I hadn't intended to read them in close proximity to compare and contrast but it was kind of fun when I landed there.

Gigi Griffis, And the Trees Stare Back. This is not my usual sort of thing--creepy YA with eventual explanation--except for one major factor: it's set in the lead-up to the Singing Revolution in Estonia. Really great integration of historical setting and speculative concept, bonded hard with the characters, loved it. Most of the historical fiction I read has me reading through the cracks of my fingers, wincing at what I know is coming but the characters do not. This was the opposite, I spent the entire book super-excited for them.

Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty, Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of the American Prairie. I am always disappointed to find out that I am already pretty expert in something, because I learn less that way. The American Prairie! Soil restoration, water conservation, habitats, farming...it turns out I already know quite a lot about this. Darn. If you don't, here's a good place to start.

John Lisle, Project Mind Control: Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKULTRA. Ooooof. This is another "I saw it on the library's new books shelf" read for this fortnight, and its portrayal of CIA misbehavior was...not a surprise, but having this amount of detail on one project was...not cheering.

Ada Palmer, Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age. If you internalized the idea that historians should be effaced as completely as possible from the writing of history, in the pretense that the history wrote itself really, this will not be the book for you. Ada Palmer is as major a factor in this book as Machiavelli or any of the Medicis. If, on the other hand, you enjoy Ada's classroom lecture voice, it comes through really clearly here. There are some places where I was clearly not her target audience--I honestly don't have a personal investment in what Machiavelli's personal religious stance was, so the chapter about why we want him to be an atheist was speaking to a "we" I am not in. Still, lots of interesting stuff here. Including, surprisingly, cantaloupes.

Jo Piazza, Everyone Is Lying to You. This is a thriller about social media influencers in the group that would have been called "Mommy bloggers" a generation ago, set in the Mountain West. It's very readable, and if you know anything about tradwife influencers you'll see lots of places where it's spot on. I think people who read a lot may find the twists less twisty, but it doesn't rely solely on twists for its appeal.

Joe Mungo Reed, Terrestrial History. I haven't had a satisfying generational epic in a long time. This one spans Earth and Mars, with point of view characters in four generations and multiple points on their partially shared timeline. My preferences would have been for more of everything, more all around--for a generational epic this is comparatively slim--but still very readable.

Sophy Roberts, A Training School for Elephants: Retracing a Curious Episode in the European Grab for Africa. The subtitle calls this a curious episode. It is instead a staggeringly depressing demonstration of how colonialism was fractally horrible. Zoom in a little closer! more horrors! hooray! No. Not hooray. And Roberts is clearly not claiming it is a cause for celebration, but...well. For me this microhistory was more upsetting than illuminating. Maybe I should stop looking at the new books shelf at the library for a minute.

Jessie L. Weston, The Three Days' Tournament: A Study in Romance and Folk-Lore. Kindle. Comparison and contrast of different appearances of a particular legend throughout western/northwestern Europe and England. Nostalgic for me because I used to read a lot more of this sort of thing.

Darcie Wilde, A Purely Private Matter, And Dangerous to Know, A Lady Compromised, A Counterfeit Suitor, and The Secret of the Lady's Maid. This is not all the Rosalind Thorne mysteries there are, but it's all the Rosalind Thorne mysteries my library had. If you like the first one, they are consistent, and I think you could probably start anywhere and find the situation and characters adequately explained. Regency mysteries! Do you want some of those? here they are.
jreynoldsward: (Default)
[personal profile] jreynoldsward

When you commit to owning a horse for their whole life, you know that there's going to be That Day happening at some point.

Sometimes That Day is a day early, sometimes it's a day late.

And sometimes That Day just happens Right Now. Not when you want it, not when you've planned, but...it just slaps you hard, right in the face, that this has to be The Day.

That day was yesterday for the horse of my heart, Miss Olena Chic (Mocha), who I had owned for twenty years. I had already discussed the need to put her down this fall because she just wasn't going to do well in the coming winter. Held that discussion with the vet, the ranch owners, and my husband. We'd agreed that she would have one last good summer (hopefully), eating grass, hanging out in one of her favorite fields, having time with Her Gelding, getting lots of treats and being loved on. Which was happening.

I knew things were going downhill. The bone spurs on her problematic right knee were starting to make the cannon bone (big bone between the knee and hoof in a horse's foreleg) twist noticeably this last week. But she was still getting around, and was even managing to canter-hobble when I called her for grain, treats, and attention (oh, was she ever holding her head high and proud those days when she figured out how to canter with that bad knee). Then it became a trot, then a walk, and then...yesterday.

She had taken to standing under a big willow in the front of the pasture she was in, especially if I was coming later than usual. So I wasn't surprised by that, or by the nicker she gave me. But then...she didn't come to her usual feeding spot. My heart sank because at that point I knew. I called her again, offered her an apple slice with the painkiller she's been on for the last few months and...she could barely walk. Her legs quivered with the effort. I coaxed her over, gave her grain and treats, and called the husband because it was clear that something had happened over the last twenty-four hours. She had been walking fine the day before, hanging out with a whitetail doe and her fawns.

No signs of stress, like she had been running and strained something. Just a little sweaty under her heavy mane, which was normal for her on a hot summer's day. I checked her water trough and she had been drinking from it. She was eating normally, acting normally, except...there were signs of a possible neurological issue.

You don't call the vet for a last-ditch treatment for this. Not for an old mare that the vet has already shaken his head as he says "no more winters." If you call the vet, it's euthansia time.

I went to the ranch. Burst into tears when I told the ranch owner's daughter and asked her for another pair of eyes in case I was wrong (she's Miss Rodeo Oregon 2026 and is very experienced in her own right). Her parents were out of town but almost back. Dez eyed Mocha and agreed, calling her parents. Something bad had happened. Jeffrey dropped Vixen off when they got to town and...more consensus. We decided to try to get her on a trailer and back to the ranch. While Mocha's never been that friendly with Vixen, she's always loaded well for her and--no hesitation, no problems. Thankfully.

Then the discussion at the ranch. Today or tomorrow? Gunshot or vet visit tomorrow? Thankfully, I'd already had that discussion with Jeffrey because they've dealt with a lot of older horses who need to be put down. The recommendation was gunshot because sometimes the euthanasia meds don't work as well with older horses, and they'll fight them, making those last few minutes awful and fearful for the horse. Mocha was a tough old girl--and I feared that she would fight it. So no, no vet. Tonight, because it was cooler and we all feared given the rapid progress of her deteroration that she would go down and not be able to get up, making things more complicated. She was already in pain, why put her through more?

She was happily eating hay in the trailer. I gave her the last peppermints while Vixen quickly braided her tail and clipped the braids so I would have a keepsake. Then it was watching the trailer and backhoe go out to the back field, and stand with Marker, waiting for the end. All the horses on the ranch were fussing and anxious because they knew something was up. Marker called to Mocha when the trailer went out. Then he stood while I cried on his neck (I'd cried on Mocha's neck in the trailer), nuzzling me and licking me.

We waited while Jeffrey dug the hole with the backhoe. Then the trailer headed back. Marker screamed and called as the trailer went by, fussing when there wasn't an answer. Shortly after, the final shot.

She was a fine horse. I'll write a little bit more about the twenty-five years I knew her at another time, because I had been around her from a foal, even though I didn't buy her until she was five. I have a big collection of ribbons she won at various shows, and a belt buckle she won. I have one of her shoes, a portion of one tooth, and the braids. Plus tack--some of which has not been repurposed for Marker--and pictures. She had been bred to be a show horse and did pretty darn good at it.

But right now there are still tears and an empty spot in my heart.


swan_tower: (Default)
[personal profile] swan_tower
Years ago, I formed the idea of making novella-sized short story collections organized around particular subgenres. Sorting through the stories I had at that point, I determined that there should be six of these (or, well, seven, but one of those I set aside for a slightly different plan; it turned into Driftwood).

Today, the last of those six is finally published at Book View Cafe!

cover art for A SONGBOOK OF SPARKS, showing a twist of golden sparks against a black background

I was able to publish Maps to Nowhere and Ars Historica almost immediately; it took a little longer to do Down a Street That Wasn't There and to decide that, really, I wasn't going to write any more short stories set in The Nine Lands, so I could go ahead and publish that one. Because I became determined to balance out the regions featured in A Breviary of Fire, the fifth of the set came out only last year. And then secondary world fantasy lapped the pack with The Atlas of Anywhere a few months ago.

But it took a while to complete the sixth of the original set, A Songbook of Sparks, because its requirements were very particular. As the cover and title suggest, this is a follow-up of sorts to A Breviary of Fire (as Atlas is to Maps), likewise consisting of stories drawn from traditional folklore -- but in this case, it's specifically folksongs. Ballads and the like. And after a spate of writing those while I was in graduate school, I just kinda . . . stopped. Without having quite enough material to cross my minimum threshold for making one of these books. So it's only quite recently that I wrote and published the last story needed to complete this set!

But now it is done, and out in the world: you may buy it in ebook or print, as you prefer. Within you'll find nine stories, one unpublished poem that mashes up sources half a world apart, and -- a bonus specific to this collection -- the lyrics of the traditional songs that inspired the stories. Enjoy!

(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/GqaT2h)

Pen and Ink

Sep. 1st, 2025 05:02 pm
lovelyangel: (Kagamin Pleased)
[personal profile] lovelyangel
TWSBI Diamond 580AL Fountain Pen and Pilot Iroshizuku Murasaki-shikibu Fountain Pen Ink
TWSBI Diamond 580AL Fountain Pen
Pilot Iroshizuku Murasaki-shikibu Fountain Pen Ink

It might not be a good thing that I’m signed up for JetPens emails, as I can be easily tempted. Sure enough, their weekly newsletter waved an addition to their stock of TWSBI Diamond 580ALR Fountain Pens before me, and I had to go look. Up until then, I wasn’t familiar with TWSBI pens.

JetPens is a wealth of information, and of course there’s a feature: Which TWSBI Fountain Pen Should I Buy? I read the entire article. While the Diamond 580ALR pens come is all sorts of wonderful colors, I shied away from the texture on their aluminum grips. So I looked into the TWSBI Diamond 580AL model, which has a smooth aluminum grip. (Actually, it’s very faintly textured, which is what I preferred.) The drawback is that it comes in only two colors – Silver and Iceberg Blue. I decided to get the blue one.

Ink was a no-brainer. I got a nice, large (50ml) bottle of Pilot Iroshizuku Murasaki-shikibu Ink. The price was pretty good, too.

I placed the order last Wednesday, and the kit arrived in the mail on Saturday. Unfortunately, I am packing up my office and workspace, so there’s no way I have the time nor place to play with the new items. Playtime will have to wait until October.

Plans for the Weekend?

Sep. 1st, 2025 04:55 pm
lydamorehouse: (Default)
[personal profile] lydamorehouse
 Diversicon Art
Image: A cat/phoniex atop a UFO overlooking an apocalyptic scene where everything is on fire, including a random robot in the distance.

I really love this art, btw, I hope they have t-shirts.

So, yeah, you doing anything this weekend? [personal profile] naomikritzer and I are going to be guests of honor at what may very well be the very last Diversicon, ever. If you're not doing anything and have an extra $55 in your pocket, why don't you consider stopping by? We'd love to see you. There is a programming list online: https://diversicon32.mnstf.org/schedule.html

Code deploy happening shortly

Aug. 31st, 2025 07:37 pm
mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
[staff profile] mark posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance

Per the [site community profile] dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.

There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.

denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
[staff profile] denise posting in [site community profile] dw_news

A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

Making Money

Aug. 30th, 2025 07:20 pm
ksmith: (Default)
[personal profile] ksmith
I started my reread of Making Money only to realize after a chapter or two that I didn't recall any of it. At least one scene usually sticks in my mind*, and there are so many of Lord Vetinari being Lord Vetinari that I definitely should have remembered. Adora Belle Dearheart is one of my favorite minor characters, so I'd have at least recalled her.

And Mr. Fusspot. I would've remembered the dog, if only for one of the funniest scenes I have ever read in any Discworld book:

Watching a dog try to chew a large piece of toffee is a pastime fit for gods. Mr. Fusspot's mixed ancestry had given him a dexterity of jaw that was truly awesome. He somersaulted happily around the floor, making faces like a rubber gargoyle in a washing machine.

Maybe you have to have had a dog, idk.

Anyway, I think this is the first time I've read it. am enjoying it. Moist von Lipwig is such a conflicted, seat-of-the-pants sort of person.




*except for Night Watch, which failed to make an impression. I recalled that there was a rebellion at some point, but that was it.

Changing Covers

Aug. 30th, 2025 12:40 pm
jreynoldsward: (Default)
[personal profile] jreynoldsward

 

 (alas, no pictures because Dreamwidth insists that I link to something with a URL. SIGH.)

 

 

One of the reasons I like being self-published is the ability to look at things I’ve put out there and say “well, that didn’t work. The foundation of the story is good, but it’s not resonating with readers…let’s try something different!”

 

(note: this is often after sending this out to betas and having editing done. I don’t want lectures about the joys of critique groups, traditional publishing, etc etc ad nauseum.)

 

Sometimes that means ripping apart a story and rewriting it (which is happening right now with Klone’s Stronghold: Reeni) for various reasons.

 

More often it’s quick fixes of typos, updating the back matter and…creating a new cover. I started learning how to make semi-decent covers early on in my self-publishing days, when I got ripped off by a cover artist working through someone trying to set up their own hybrid publishing company. Not only did the artist not come anywhere near the concept, but the pricing was way out of line for the times (and given what the quality was, would still be way out of line. Though I suspect the current equivalent would be someone dashing it off using AI).

 

I started doing my own covers instead of working with a designer regularly because I was also putting out short stories and the cost was just too high. I didn’t like the results working with cover creation programs offered by several distributors, either. Plus I also tend to take pretty decent photographs. Making covers using my own pictures for background images seemed to be a pretty sweet notion.

 

As a result, I downloaded GIMP and started wrestling with it. GIMP is a perfectly good enough program, but…I started looking elsewhere after a while because it was always a fight to get everything done correctly. One friend does her covers in PowerPoint. I tried it and, well, it was still a wrestling job. Then I ended up with BookBrush and, for me, it’s well worth the expense. I don’t just do covers in it, I do promotional material.

 

Keep in mind that I’ve been told I have a decent eye for colorways, based on my quilting and my past history making beaded jewelry. Not everyone can do that. I also dedicate some amount of time looking at current covers, taking a few courses here and there, and studying what may or may not work.

 

The biggest challenge, however, is finding background images that work. I’ve learned the hard way that I have to modify my picture taking in order to create useable cover pictures (though I will use them in promo stuff). Then there’s the challenge of AI-generated images. I won’t use AI, so for a while last year I thought that meant no images on my covers unless they were pictures I’ve taken myself. I couldn’t find anything in my various photo sources that both fit and were uploaded before AI became a thing.

 

Then…something changed, as evidenced by those two covers above. The original Becoming Solo cover was kinda okay, but it was quickly outdated color-wise and font-wise. I stumbled across that image a week ago while doing something else in BookBrush, and looked up the licensing source data. Imagine my happy surprise when I discovered that this image was created in the twenty-teens, pre-AI. I added an updated font and…I like this cover so much better. To me, it hints of the darkness within that story, not just the choices that the main character Yesenia has to face but a secondary character with darkness within her, Shadow the Question, who has seen the destruction of a Magic Fair first-hand.

 

(yes, there will be a sequel, no, I don’t know when or what it will be about. Might be Shadow’s story. Might not be. Still brewing in the backbrain.)

 

The Crucible cover came about from the same sort of poking around—in fact, I discovered both images at the same time. When I was putting together the covers for The Cost of Power trilogy last year, I just couldn’t find anything that worked. I was fiddling with a promotional trailer for the trilogy’s omnibus edition and…this image came up. I took one look at it and realized that this picture of a man with a gun was Gabriel Martiniere throughout this series, but even more so for the second book, Crucible, where Gabe struggles with a LOT of issues and bad choices, in the face of increasing desperation because he can’t admit that he still wants a way out from the Martiniere Family. Which leads to…problems.

 

I looked up the upload date and, again…a twenty-teen upload. Perfect! The same held true for the other two books of the trilogy as well as the omnibus. Why I couldn’t find them a year ago I don’t know, but I was more than happy to replace the plain brown and gold covers in Cinzel Decorative font (which is in EVERYTHING right now, especially romantasy—I fear it is going to be the next Papyrus as far as people not wanting to see it). Add in the Black Ops One font and the tone…fit.

 

(the other two covers involve lightning striking two hills…which fits the ending of book one, and a cutout of two lovers looking at each other against a background of a heart made up of sparks, which fits what happens in book three. The omnibus cover is flame against darkness. All twenty-teen uploads, again.)

 

Sometimes my cover fiddling works and makes me happy, like these covers. Or the covers for my Netwalk Sequence series. Others…well, I’m still struggling with some of the main Martiniere Family Legacy covers. That may be an issue of the fonts. Same for the Goddess’s Honor fantasy series because I haven’t been happy with any of the covers. The original ones by a designer are outdated, alas. Fantasy covers are a big challenge because there is so much AI out there.

 

But…I’ll keep looking around. Sooner or later I’ll find what I need…as I just discovered.

 

When the time is right….


Covid vaccine heads-up

Aug. 30th, 2025 09:49 am
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] redbird
Because Bobby Brainworm is out to get us:

RFK Jr blocked CDC approval of the updated covid vaccine. There are three states where pharmacists can't legally give a vaccine without CDC approval: Massachusetts (where I live), Nevada, and New Mexico. In another 13 states, pharmacists can give the vaccine but only with a prescription, and CVS isn't shipping the vaccine to pharmacies in any of these 16 states.

Note: the vaccine is legally available in every state, because the relevant FDA committee did approve it, but some of us will have to get it from a doctor's office, which will be more of a hassle even when it’s possible.

P.S. Walgreen’s too, per a comment at Universal Hub.

Those are state laws, so call your state representatives and governor and tell them to change it.

“Massachusetts )
lovelyangel: (Kyoko Distraught)
[personal profile] lovelyangel
Photography Studio Equipment Awaiting Teardown
Photography Studio Equipment Awaiting Teardown
August 29, 2025
Nikon Z6 • NIKKOR Z MC 50mm f/2.8
f/4 @ 50mm • 1/60s • ISO 1600

Fighting despair while sorting, packing and moving... I’m failing at emptying the big room by the end of the month. There are so many little tasks that pop up, forcing reorganization while packing. While some things are bound for trash/giveaway, there is still way too much stuff that must be moved and stored, and I don’t know where it will go.

While in the garage, I saw that I have 12 more boxes of books (mostly SF but also old classics and tech books). There is no way 70 boxes of books will fit into the new bookwall, and there will be a Grand Culling when the books are shelved. There will also be a fair amount of double-stacking on the shelves, I’m sure.

In the garage I also found several reams of specialty paper. (I had wondered where the Conqueror Lightspeck (sky blue color) went to.) I don’t think all the paper will fit into the storage cabinet currently slated to hold those items.

I also have to take down all my photography studio equipment – tripods, cameras, lights and light stands – and find some place to store the gear temporarily. There is a surprising amount. I’m tagging heads to match their legs, as I doubt I’d remember which head goes on which light stand. (They’re all different.) It will be nice at the end for all the equipment to be stored in one place, as historically they’ve been scattered and stashed in various locations around the house – wherever I could find space.

My packing and moving is currently complicated by scheduled volunteer work for my church, currently in progress, and that work continues through Saturday. This weekend, I’m making a concerted push to vacate the big room, including moving my office into my bedroom. The project remains daunting.
swan_tower: (Default)
[personal profile] swan_tower
In obedience to long-standing tradition, in a month with five Fridays, the New Worlds Patreon turns its attention to matters of theory and craft! This time, we're taking a look at the worldbuilding on-ramp -- which is to say, the vital questions of how much to explain at the start of your story, and how choosing the right entry point can ease the reader's way in. Comment over there!

(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/7LsNqj)

a reassuring trip to the dentist

Aug. 28th, 2025 02:38 pm
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] redbird
I just had a reassuringly boring dental visit. I called yesterday because I'd been having pain on and off for the previous three days, and they gave me an appointment for this morning.

I felt much better last night and basically OK this morning, but I still wanted the dentist to check in case there was a problem—intermittent symptoms can be hard to diagnose. The dentist looked inside my mouth, poked in a few places, and took two X-rays, finding nothing wrong. His best guess is that something was caught between my gum and bone, and I got it out by cleaning my teeth yesterday; I don’t know why the previous three days of brushing and flossing hadn’t done the job.

The dentist did see a little tenderness in the area that had been hurting, and wrote me a prescription for something to rinse with. Other than that, call if there are further problems, or come back in three months for my usual cleaning.

I am pleased with the outcome: it stopped hurting, and the dentist confirmed that there's nothing wrong, so I don’t need unpleasant and possibly expensive dental work.

The dentist said to hold the prescription rinse in my mouth for “a few seconds,” then rinse with water, and I only need to rinse that side of the month. The printed prescription label says 30 seconds and not to rinse for 30 minutes afterwards, which I assume are the standard instructions for this medication.

Still Alive, Still Breathing

Aug. 28th, 2025 09:25 am
lydamorehouse: (Default)
[personal profile] lydamorehouse
 bee on dipping flower
Image: honey bee(/) on the wrong end of dipping yellow flower

I am still breathing, which is good, but my stomach flora has been descimated by the antibiotic, alas. So, I have not felt like writing much for the last couple of days as I have been hanging close to the bathroom (sorry, TMI.) I have to say? I am a fan of Flonase!  It has helped tremendously with the whole sleeping through the night thing! Am I improving, though? It's so hard to say because the solution to one problem has clearly lead to another. 

I did manage, on Tuesday, to record a new Mona Lisa Overpod episode, our 30th! If you're interested in the art of Moebius, feel free to check it out. 

Otherwise, I have been entertaining myself by playing around with scheduling Gaylaxicon. We have a grid and I've been enjoying plugging in panels and seeing what kind of line-ups I can create. As I am but one member of the committee, I've been doing this on a dummy schedule with the thought that I can share it with the programming head and we can, if no one else has anything to share, use it as a draft. I'm sure that we will be moving things around until the very last minute. It's like a puzzle game, though, what with everyone's schedules and the desire not to overbook everyone. Wish me luck with that. 

I will tell you all? It's going to be an AMAZING con if we pull this thing off!

Otherwise, it't toast and yogurt for me!

Hopefully, you all are doing better!