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2012 Puddle Award for Best Short Story Title: Heat eight (of nine)
[info]jongibbs
May 26th, 11:01
Current Mood:
excited excited
The search for the winner of this year's Meager Puddle of Limelight Award for Best Short Story Title continues with heat eight (the last of the preliminary heats).

There are nine heats in all. The winners (or joint winners) from heats one - eight go straight through. The second place finishers battle it out in heat nine to see which title joins the others in the final round.

What's at stake?
Bragging rights for the winner? An interview and/or guest post here on An Englishman in New Jersey, as well as signed copy of my book, Fur-Face, and a couple of I are a writer! pens, as shown in the pic below.

You'll need an LJ account to vote, but they're free).

Poll #1842793 2012 MEAGER PUDDLE OF LIMELIGHT AWARD FOR BEST SHORT STORY TITLE: HEAT 8 OF 9
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None, participants: 3

From the following list, please select any short story titles which you think should progress to the final round

View Answers
THEY CAME BEARING DANGEROUS GIFTS
2 (14.3%)
TRANSLYMANIC
1 (7.1%)
UNDER THE PAPER
2 (14.3%)
UNITED WE SOAR
1 (7.1%)
VICTIM OF LOVE
1 (7.1%)
WARBLING THEIR WAY TO WAR
2 (14.3%)
WATER TO SHARE
1 (7.1%)
WE CAN REMEMBER IT FOR YOU RETAIL
1 (7.1%)
WHAT THE CARP SAW (AND COULDN'T TELL WHILE STILL ALIVE)
1 (7.1%)
WHEN THE LIGHT WAS ON
2 (14.3%)



Links to the other Heats and the final:
Heat one
Heat two
Heat three
Heat four
Heat five
Heat six
Heat seven
Heat eight
Heat nine
Final Round

Voting in Heats 1 through 8 will close on Sunday, June 3rd 2012 at 6:00pm (US/Eastern). Heat nine will take place soon after.

Good luck to all who take part! Vene, vidi, puddli!

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Golden Gate Bridge
[info]magsmom
May 26th, 8:00


Tomorrow May 27, 2012 is the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge. Festivities are gong on all weekend and all year.  The Bridge is a marvel of architecture and is among the most beautiful and iconic structures in the world.

In addition to its beauty, the Golden Gate Bridge is key to the success of San Francisco. It connects the City to Marin County and points north. It is a crucial link for commerce, leisure and everything else.  I just read that over 1 billion vehicles has crossed the span in the 75 years since it opened. And I believe that most of them were in front of me on a Friday afternoon.

Like every other San Franciscan, I feel a close connection to this bridge. Mine is more than civic pride, though. My grandfather, John J. Casey was the City Engineer at the time the Bridge was completed in 1937. He was very involved in the building of the Bridge. Of course when I was a kid, I was convinced that he single-handedly built the entire bridge, but I have come to recognize there were a few others involved.
John Casey, City Engineer April 1937 (my grandfather)
John Casey - tall man in back with Joseph Strauss (short man in front), Chief Engineer of the Bridge, Charles Segerstrom and others at last Rivet Ceremony. (My mother knows - I will edit later) 
  

I found these original pictures in a book when my aunt died a few years ago. I sent some of them to an exhibition at the Marin County Fair last year an, probably because of that, I received a letter inviting me to come to the History Tent this morning because of my personal connection to the Bridge. I immediately called my mother, Carmel Casey Coghlan. My personal connection is her. Her connection is first hand. This morning, Steve, Maggie, me, my brother Pat and my mother will head down to the history tent so she can share her information.

She can tell them how, years after the fact, my father tried to impress her by telling her he was on the bridge the day it opened and she responded that she was on it the day BEFORE it opened to the public, riding in an official City car.  She can show them these pictures of her father standing on the Bridge in April 1937, one month before the opening. Because she gave tours of the bridge for many years, she can - and likely will - tell them facts they don't know. My brother and I will sit back and watch her and marvel.

Today history will be shared, perhaps even rewritten a bit. I just hope everyone is ready for it.

 Here are other pictures. I sent scans of these  to the SF Library and was advised these are official Department of Public Works photos. If you look closely you can see the date and general description at the top. All pictures were taken at the Last Rivet Ceremony in April 1937
Top:  Mayor Angelo Rossi and other dignitaries Next: Marin County Side showing the connection to the logging industries in the North Bay.  
The last Golden Rivet donated and handcrafted by Charles Segerstrom of Sonora (in fancy hat)
Hammering in last "golden" rivet. Hammer was too strong for the soft gold and it disintegrated.

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[conventions] World Steam Expo, Day One
[info]jaylake
May 26th, 7:55
Yesterday was even more entertaining that Thursday. I cracked my happy ass out of bed extremely late by my own standards, hit the health club for some time on the stationary bike, then caught breakfast in the Green Room. After some bloggery and email time and whatnot, I had my massage — And how cool is it that World Steam Expo has a masseur on retainer for the pros!? — and then went exploring. This eventually involved use of the hot tub, among other things.

I spent a decent chunk of the day hanging out with the inestimable Howard Tayler, who created a truly impressive steampunk caricature of me. (When I get home, I shall scan and post this, but at the moment it is my badge art.) Howard is his own self hanging out in the Aegis room, which is basically a camp for combat geeks. Inside the Con hotel, these cats have a rappelling tower, weapons training with actual pointy objects, a bunch of Nerf weapons, and a Victorian encampment. They are pretty much a real life incarnation of the Black Briar group in J.A. Pitt's Black Blade Blues [ Powells | BN ]. The Aegis group helped me make a notable entrance to opening ceremonies.

Also spent a lot more time partying with The League of S.T.E.A.M. and a whole bunch of other folks, including briefly running across the few people besides Howard that I actually knew before I turned up here. Specifically, Gail Carriger, G.D. Falksen (who has an important planet named after him in the Sunspin universe) and Evelyn Kriete (who is responsible for me being invited to this convention). I caught the last part of the The Men That Will Not be Blamed for Nothing concert.

I even got a bit more work done on Going to Extremes.

Today I have lunch with Howard, a High Tea to host, and a plan to hear some more excellent performances. A bit more programming tomorrow.

Interestingly, I am way off my normal schedule here, even my normal convention schedule. I'm not sure what clock I'm living on, but it's neither Jay time nor Con time. I'm just going with the flow. Which it turns out is remarkably difficult for me to do. I feel twitchy about not being up at 5 am exercising (hard to do when you're going to bed at 2 am) and why I'm not writing more.

But I'm here to have fun, which I am decidedly doing; and to see and be seen, which I am decidedly doing.

Is this what time off feels like?

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[photos] Your Saturday moment of zen
[info]jaylake
May 26th, 7:35
Your Saturday moment of zen.

IMG_3052.JPG

Playground equipment, 2006. © 2006, 2012, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.

The current photo series is from my 'favorites' file, hence the dates jumping about

Creative Commons License

This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
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[links] Link salad will not be blamed for nothing
[info]jaylake
May 26th, 7:34
Book Review: Grants Pass, edited by Jennifer Brozek and Amanda Pillar — A review that includes an interesting comment on my story "Black Heart, White Mourning".

The Nebula Awards 2012: A Look Back And A Look Forward — James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel in HuffPo.

Calvin and Hobbes on unfettered creativity as a writer — Hahaha.

War of the Worlds: The True Story — A new indie flick coming out that looks pretty cool.

Star Wars Turns 35: How Time Covered the Film Phenomenon

Red Planet Becomes Blue In New Mars Image

Astronauts enter world’s first private supply ship

Impacts Spreading Life through the Cosmos?

Colonel Sanders resembles Confucius — Chicken, anyone?

?otd: Charles Darwin: Man or monkey?



5/26/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.5 hours (Going to Extremes proposal)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.0 (solid)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: Shattering the Ley by Benjamin Tate; Of Blood and Honey by Stina Leicht

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Links up to 26/05/2012
[info]johncoxon
May 26th, 13:00

These are the links I've saved to Pinboard in the last day. They also get posted to Twitter. (Relative times will be based on the time the tweet was posted, so take any uses of ?today? or ?tomorrow? with a pinch of salt!)

Posted via Feed This To That.

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Stormy!
[info]calendula_witch
May 25th, 22:52
Current Location:
Witchnest Manor
Current Mood:
impressed impressed

Quite a thunderstorm rolled through here this evening! Which is rare, in this part of the world.

It was a calm, warm, pleasant day–I was driving around in the Miata with the top down till after 5:00, and working in the yard for an hour after that–but then the sky darkened, and the wind picked up…actually, only part of the sky darkened, while we still had a placid, lovely evening to the west.

It was impossible to capture in a photograph, but this gives some sense, from before it started:

Bright sunshine and deep dark clouds.

And then the thunder! It rattled the windows. I never saw any lightning, but then, I wasn’t outside any more. :-)

Then the fire department came by. Someone had called about a smell of gas; I thought it smelled like the ocean (or, well, a thunderstorm); nobody owned up to having called them; eventually they left.

By that point it was pouring rain, drenching, a dark downpour.

Then it stopped. Now it’s all peaceful out there.

I know this kind of thing isn’t such a big deal in parts of the country where they happen every day, but…here it’s kinda special.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

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Moving along
[info]lrcutter
May 25th, 16:52

I have a bunch of social things this weekend, but I’m still hoping to write at least one more chapter for the week, another 3000 words. I just finished typing up the latest chapter. I have almost 30,000 words in 10 chapters.

29553 / 70000

I need to think about the next chapter, where it’s going, what it’s doing. It may finally be time to start plotting some.

I got back the edits for ZQ. I want to do those Monday, and start pushing the book out, so it’ll be available the first week of June.

I have a short story to write for the workshop I’m taking in June. Great idea, great character, great voice already nagging at me about it.

And—I think that’s it. Time to go get changed and ready for a night out.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.
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A question for the crowd
[info]stillsostrange
May 25th, 17:35
Current Mood:
working working
Current Music:
The Sisters of Mercy - Temple of Love
I named a character once in The Bone Palace, an offhand reference that didn't warrant an entry in the dramatis personae but is still in print. Now I find myself needing to write more about that character and a) not liking his name much anymore, and b) finding it a bit too similar to someone else who shows up quite often. How many of you would be wildly irritated if I changed someone's name between books? (I doubt most people even remember that he was ever mentioned, but somewhere out there is the reader who will.)
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(no subject)
[info]magsmom
May 25th, 15:28
A couple of Saturdays ago I was mindlessly folding a mountain of laundry and looking out the front window. I could see a knot of very well dressed teenagers taking pictures and getting ready to pile into a car. It was my neighbor Daniella and her friends taking off for the prom. They all looked fabulous and excited and were ready for a big night. I smiled as I watched them. How could I not. No matter what heartbreak or disappointment you remember from your own experience, the prom remains one of the key rites of passage for American teenagers.

I stopped mid fold because I realized I was smiling and thoroughly enjoyed the moment. It used to be that watching Daniella do anything broke my heart just a little bit. I didn't feel that this time and that made me happy.

Daniella has been my neighbor her entire life. she was born about 6 weeks after Maggie and was typical in every way. That's what was so hard. She started to walk, and Maggie didn't. She talked, and Maggie didn't. She had her girlfriends over, and Maggie didn't. I watched her hit and surpass milestone after milestone that Maggie never met and it hurt every time for a very long time.

At some point it stopped hurting. When kids are little it's hard not to compare, but as they grow into their own people comparisons generally stop. Maggie and Daniella were completely different from the start, it just took me a while to come to grips with that reality.

Don't get me wrong. Daniella is very sweet to Maggie and to all of us, but she and Maggie are not friends or peers in any way. The only thing they have in common is their age and the street on which they live. They have lead completely different lives, attended different schools, have different abilities and different everything.

Perhaps if things had been different, they would have been close friends. Maybe they would have covered for each other as they did whatever it is teenage girls do in secret. But that was not to be. I think I mourned that for a long time. Maggie never got the chance to be "normal" and have the normal kid experiences. Watching Daniella enjoy - or even protest - those experiences was a constant reminder of that.

Saturday Daniella graduates from high school and this Fall I will watch her leave for college. (To be honest, the college thing might hurt a little.)  She is poised and beautiful. She is ready to fly and I am happy for her.

 But a couple of Saturdays ago as I watched her and her friends leave for their prom, the first thought that crossed my mind was this: Daniella is wearing the same color dress Maggie wore to her prom. Instead of watching her experience something Maggie would not, I was making a connection to a similar experience of Maggie's. Now Maggie and Daniella have their age, the street on which they live and the color of their prom dresses in common. 

And that made me smile.
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