Killing ourselves reinventing nature

These are fabulous award-winning pictures, Small World - all taken through magnification. This Velcro picture I linked to is very cool, and below is a favourite, Crystallized Vitamin A. I love the microscopic patterns and structures we cannot see, that are replicated on huge scales, whether man-made or natural.

Unsung Heroes

(or Evil Slash-Happy Monsters - I think authors waver between the two extremes when referring to editors. :-)

I was pleasantly surprised to find this article at Locus Online, discussing the influences of great editors. The article goes into a statistical breakdown of Hugo and Nebula winning stories - fascinating for us statistic/marketing types.
Often editors are overlooked in the success of a story. The author gets the fame, fortune and glory. (I know.. har har) While I would much rather be a prolific writer, I have always had a knack for editing and am improving with each project that comes along. It's a great feeling to be able to work with someone's really good piece of art, and make it great - a synergy that makes up for the lack of fame, fortune and glory.

Copyright issues

Friend and author Lynda Williams interviewed in an article about copyright issues in Canada.

A moment of agony

I finally finished whacking at my short story, Addiction, which I renamed Theatre of the Vulnerable. I even managed to pound out a cover letter sans 4 cups of coffee, and submitted the whole works to a Canadian Anthology. I'm very nervous that the editor will come all the way over here and beat me up and tell all the other editors never to read any of my stuff.

A big smooch out to David and Karl who gave me some fine feedback.

This is a skit. We are so there.

I'm ignorant of British radio, so this was a pleasant surprise. You've GOT to first listen to The Whoremongers, about halfway down the pink list of links. I also laughed my ass off at Kylie's Ass.

We need to blatantly steal both of those ideas and use them in Filth Skits. (To be safe and have theatrical honour, the program will say: we blatantly stole these ideas.)

What's am I anyway

I know I should be writing, but I'm in need of senseless distraction. Personality quizzes are always good for deep and meaningful analysis.


What's your funky hair colour?

Your Hair Should Be Pink

Hyper, insane, and a boatload of fun. You're a traveling party that everyone loves to follow.

What's Your Funky Inner Hair Color?

What kind of candy are you?

Gummy Bears

You may be smooshie and taste unnatural, but you're so darn cute.

What Kind of Candy Are You?

How boyish or girlish are you?
(The stupidest sounding one had the greatest answer of them all. And trust me, I did almost all of them.)

You Are 70% Boyish and 30% Girlish

You are pretty evenly split down the middle - a total eunuch. Okay, kidding about the eunuch part. But you do get along with both sexes. You reject traditional gender roles. However, you don't actively fight them. You're just you. You don't try to be what people expect you to be.

How Boyish or Girlish Are You?

When things get ya down

A big smooch to my friends who help me through my rough spots. Try this, and let me know who you are. I laughed and laughed.

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

A lesson in Canadiana

Sometimes I come across the people that remind me why the world goes around.

I would do my own version, but most of you have seen my butt.

Novel Proposals

Here is an excellent blog post on writing novel proposals. This may be one of the most cohesive articles I've read on the topic. There are other excellent reads in this blog, with contributions from a number of different authors.

Wake up and smell the crayons

I can't believe how parents are whining about the teachers' strike. We are all inconvenienced by having our children home when they're usually at school. The teachers are fighting for better conditions for our children. 51 students in a class that is supposed to have a maximum of 33. (33 is already way too high) Does this not say something needs to be done??
I would rather my children miss a couple of weeks and have to work harder later. If ANY improvement is made in our current education system, it will be easier for both students and teachers. This is NOT merely about teachers' pay, it is about what YOUR children are immersed in for a good portion of their growing lives. When our teachers are sending home notes asking for furniture fixtures and paper towel, there's a very small example something larger is very wrong.

Talebones Magazine of Science Fiction & Dark Fantasy

Posting a link to Talebones Magazine. A great quality publication and I enjoyed meeting Patrick.

VCon Report

Had a great time at VCon 30. All of the volunteers did a great job.
I had many wonderful conversations and met a few great peoples.

Just quoted.

It's been said that English doesn't borrow words from other languages, rather that English chases other languages down dark alleys, beats them up and rifles through their pockets for loose words.

Sorry, I slipped and instead of being evil was just late...


Your bitching is an integral part of your character, or so I tell myself...


They say diamonds are a girl's best friend, but I tend to think it's a good push-up bra.

So much to say and none of it relevant to your crisis.

Feel like the biggest piece of shit ever

Went to take my daughter to the clinic this evening. We're walking down the sidewalk of the strip mall, and I'm shivering with a fever and hacking up a lung. We walk by a coffee shop, where a man is sitting outside, calling to people, with his hand reaching out. "Ma'am? Sir?" Most people, including myself, do the walk by without acknowledging him, as most do with any beggar on the street.
Twenty minutes later, when we walk back that way again, there's ambulance attendants treating this man. My daughter tells me when we first walked by she heard the man asking a person to please help him.

We went and sat down in the waiting room of the clinic where I cried into my daughter's hair as she sat on my lap. It only got worse when the doctor told me it was time to get her a puffer for asthma.

Please, don't walk by anyone asking for help, even if you think it's only going to be an annoying request for change.

Documents online

This is very cool - www.writely.com. Create and share your online documents. Keeps track of who's working on what. We'll have to try it with our Filth scripts.