Katherine Mankiller

Tiptree short list

Someone on Broad Universe pointed out the Tiptree short list today. Ooh, online fic! Read at desk when I should have been doing printer maintenance! (Not really, you know. The computer lab was using that printer, and the only thing wrong with it was a nasty squeak. Replacing the fuser and a bunch of rollers reduced but didn't eliminate the evil squeak--Alas!--and eliminated the evil *graunch!*)

Anyway, Carol Emshwiller's "Boys" is very cool. You should go read it. Now. Then you should run don't walk and read Charles Coleman Finlay's "Footnotes," which he mentioned on the F&SF board. I promptly added it to the list but neglected to mention it here.

Speaking of Tiptree, I still love her. I'm not sure whether to work on the new issue of F&SF or start on Up the Walls of the World next. Decisions, decisions!

I really like short fiction. It's a good length for the short blocks of reading time I end up with sometimes.

And I'm sleepy and rambling. ;)

Spring!

I just felt a need to share the prettiness...

Nifty-swifty-ness on SFWA's site, and my calves.

This is a very useful link for the nightmare story, even if not all the items apply to the story in question. Also, I think I was writing with the wrong POV character, although I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't attempted a draft, since it took me an abortive draft attempt to really figure out what's going on. Or maybe I should condense characters. In fact, I probably should, because if I change POV characters, the original POV character doesn't really serve much purpose.

In other news, I suck at running running is very challenging, and I think I'm pushing too hard. My calves inform me that they hate me I need to slow down.

Rejectomancy

I'm sitting here trying to decipher hidden meanings out of the quarter-sheet I received from F&SF according to the handy-dandy JJA interpretation guide on the F&SF board. This is why people claim rejectomancy is madness. No, but this way lies madness. ;)

So I'll avoid the long entry about how this is final proof that JJA secretly loves getting my stuff in slush and can't wait until he can finally buy one of my stories. Even though that's exactly what I'm telling myself. ;)

Next market!

Feh!

The S.O. says that when he goes to the site in Safari, he gets TeH EV0L Netscape stylesheet, which is TeH SuX0rs with any browser except Netscrape. I have therefore gone back to my previous "Screw Netscape 4.x, for it is an aged piece of crap that must die!" state of the site. Also? Feh.

In other news, I'm re-writing my submissions tracking spreadsheet in PHP. No, you can't see. ;) The whole point is to teach myself PHP, not so much that it's going to be more useful in PHP than it is in Excel. Although I'm starting to suspect that yes, it will be more useful in PHP than Excel. Relational database design and all, you know.

As procrastinations go, this one isn't bad. ;)

Scripts R Us

I've been writing scripts today. Go figure! I suspect it's because I wrote the script submission tracker yesterday. Now I need some scripts to put into it. :)

I worked on both the movie script and a new TV script. I think they're both going well. Final Draft is my friend, by the way. I just wanted to mention that.

Take that, Netscrape!

PHP browser detection. Only Netscrape 4.x gets TeH Ev0L Netscrape stylesheet. Read it and weep, Netscrape!

*evil laugh*

<Gollum>Nasty, tricksy Netscape 4.x CSS implementation! We hates it, we does!</Gollum>

playing scripts off short fiction

I got several funny pages done on the movie script. Hooray! On the other hand, I read a bit of draft for the nightmare story I wrote last week, and it is the suck. Not first draft suck, either. Worse.

Woe.

Ah well, this is the whole reason to have multiple projects in progress, right? to have something to work on when other somethings aren't cooperating?

I wonder if I would have better luck with "Grandfather Paradox." Maybe I should try that. Although I'm tempted to try to go for a quick run first. That sounds like a plan, actually. Run--well, trot, more like--then write more. Running may clear my head, and if it doesn't, well... maybe I'm supposed to rest instead.

In other news, I found a copy of Tiptree's Brightness Falls From the Air in a used bookstore. Why isn't anything of hers aside from Meet Me At Infinity in print? She should be in print. I have spoken.

writing update

That story draft that was so sucktastic? I somehow managed to wrangle a couple of good paragraphs out of it. I thought it was probably "warmer" than the previous draft, and apparently I was right.

In other news, I went for a run last night. It was about ten minutes because it was getting dark, but more than half of that was running. Yay, me! I've found a stretch of road that's relatively flat, but it's not very long so longer than ten minutes will be running up and down that spot. It's much better than the Hill Of Doom [TM] in the other direction, though.

Monday mornings are evil.

Austin Film Festival

Austin Film Festival's screenwriting competition closes on May 7.

The movie script is currently 32 pages long. The average film comedy is 90-110 pages long. May 7 is 18 days away. Assuming I would need to write about 60 more pages, that's a little over 3 pages a day. Say 4 pages a day and get revision room.

I think I'll see if I can write 4 pages. That should tell me how doable the deadline is.

Yay, me!

I managed six script pages in an hour last night, followed by a couple of paragraphs puttering on the recalcitrant nightmare story. I have therefore tentatively decided that four pages a day in hopes of finishing the movie script for Austin is doable.

I'm trying to give myself lots of wiggle room, and permission to stop, on the grounds that there's a bunch of stressful other stuff going on in my life right now. On the other hand, a deadline might be just what I need to get myself to finish this puppy. Soooo... hopefully my script is going to Austin.

I wouldn't mind going to Austin myself. Austin rocks.

May 15?

I swear the Austin Heart of Film site said May 7 last week, but now I have an extra week to write my script. This is good, because it gives me extra revision room. The more revision room I get, the happier I am.

Go ahead. Call me a weirdo. I can take it.

And I'm procrastinating. Must write!

66 pages

I had a bit of an air-conditioning-related setback. Okay, I really think I had mid-project blues. Anyway, I've been behind on my page counts for a few days, but I just did five and feel back on track. That's what matters, right?

I'm really feeling ready to go on short fiction. I expect that I will write much of it once I finish the script.