Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! Celebrate the rebirth of the year, and leave behind your sins of the past....

There's a pleasurable condescension inherent in reading travel articles. "Tourists are advised to..." "Tourists may enjoy...." Securely above the awkward cultural negotiations involved in being a tourist.

Tourists in Jerusalem rent crosses and carry them around? Yikes. I'm not talking about a small crucifix either. I'm talking an eight-footer.

This...sounds kind of hot. Hard-boiled sex writing contest--http://www.desdmona.com/contestsubmit.php Desdmona has the best erotica contests.

Just putzing around this morning...reading a backlog of email, fooling around in photoshop to make some new desktop backgrounds from the Topolino photographs...a nice slow start. In half-an-hour, I'll kick myself in the ass and start with the writing again.

( Writing, Bread Sandwich recipe )

Icon Lurve

That quick, five-minute photoshoot? Provided me with many, many new user icons!








Full photographs were posted to my flickr account here.

And then...there was no more gas.

"Ice Mother" Writing Log

7,577 / 8,000 (94.7%)

Words yesterday: 772
Total words: 7,577
Reason for length: Slow getting started.
Overused phrase: hot springs
Gratuitous phrase: bossy know-it-all
Type of scene: surviving a blizzard
Challenge(s): fixing timing and reasons for being stranded in a blizzard
Which line is it anyways?At the last gas station before the cabin, she'd just smiled and done her the-man-knows-best act when she saw that he was only filling the gas tank halfway up.
Other writingy stuff: penthius freewriting, read "Absolute Write" and "Funds for Writers" ezines, sent Vicesteed out for critique, and worked on Inspiration Exchange package.
Notes: It keeps...getting...longer.....

Die, Ice Mother, Die!

"Ice Mother" Writing Log

8,060 / 8,060 (100.0%)

End of Project Writing Log
Words today: 483
Total words: 8,060
Type of story: A modern fantasy about a young woman who was adopted by an elemental ice spirit when she was three years old, after her mother left her out in the snow. She is forced to come to terms with the varying states of her nature and emotions, and the things that have created these characteristics.
Challenge(s): Aside from writing an even halfway-reasonable synopsis? (Ok, so I failed that one.) The title. Check it out below.
Notes: I will do a basic edit of this before I even give it to critiquers. On the other hand, I am looking for volunteers to critique this baby, as always. If you're interested, you won't get a copy for a week or so.

Prospective Titles:
Blood Mother, Ice Mother
The Ice Mother
Child of Blood and Ice
Child of Ice
Daughter of Ice
Ice's Daughter
Birthmother, Ice Mother
The Temper of Ice
The Temperature of Ice
The Temperateness of Ice
The Temperature of the Heart
A Temperate Heart
The Weather of Affection
The Weather of the Heart
Winter of the Heart
A Temperate Winter
Between the Freezing Point and the Melting Point
Tempering the Freezing Point
Freezing Point of the Heart
The Point Between Freezing and Melting

Random, Writing, Conversation, Birds in Spring

I dreamt that I was part of a group of people told to pray at gunpoint. I began the Arabic prayer, "Allahu akhbar...." We're all People of the Book.

Post-it note on coffee maker at work (approx.): "It's a bad idea to leave the coffee pot on when it's empty. Just sayin'." The note doesn't work. Pot of crusted, burnt coffee when I got in to work this morning. Again.

Last week I found a tie discarded in the gutter. I put it on a parking meter. It's still there.

11:45 a.m. Bus slows to a halt twenty feet before its stop. Honks vigorously. Finally, disdainfully, a pigeon flies away from its resting point four inches in front of the bus' tire.

Gained lots of interesting new information in response to the reverse vegetarianism question. I now feel like I've got a much better grasp on the various vegetarian alternatives...and what alternatives I can use for those alternatives. (Say that ten times fast!) On the other hand, the image of "vegans raiding Ground Zero and eating all the outfits" is downright terrifying.

I propose a new homily: "Too many irons smother the fire."

The denouement bites cat ass. How's that for literary criticism?

( Birds, Ice Mother writing, and odd discussions )