Just a super quick note to remind anyone who is interested that I’ll be be on the ‘Zine Evolution panel with JA Howe, Karen Newman, Megan Arkenberg and John Klima at Coyote Con tomorrow at 5pm EST.

It should be a very busy day for me as Danica has a dance and choir performance in the morning and afternoon (MST) which will mean a lot of rushing before I make it back home to go on the panel. Check it out though, it’s free and should be informative

Coyote Con is a virtual convention run by Drollerie Press. It will take place over the month of May and in addition to the usual con fare there is also a MayWriMo challenge which is quite a bit like NaNoLJers Writo de Mayo except, I presume, bigger. Registration opened up yesterday and is free. They are having a limited number of memberships though, so if you’re interested in attending you ought to register sooner rather than later.

I’d planned to register from the first time I heard about it, so you can imagine how pleased I was when Deena Fisher emailed and offered me a spot on one of the panels. Would I like to sit on the panel about ‘Zine Evolution. Um, lemmethinkaboutthat-YES. Yes, I really would. Thank you

So I am. I’m nervous. I’m not really an expert about ‘zines, but I’m more than happy to share what I -do- know based on my personal expirience. Hopefully that’s enough and I don’t end up looking like an idiot. If you’re going to Coyote Con and want to see if I manage to get through the panel without inserting my foot in my mouth, the ‘Zine Evolution panel is on May 29th at 5PM EST. In addition to yours truly, JA Howe, Karen Newman and Megan Arkenberg will be panelists.

It should be an adventure, and the flutter of nerves I feel in my stomach when I think about doing it tells me that doing this is a good thing.

That is a screenshot of the links bar from Kari Wolfe’s blog at Imperfect Clarity. What does it have to do with anything? Um. Not much. I just think it’s fantastically amazing to have my name included in that list. I’m in pretty good company there, hmm? Thanks Kari! That really made my day when I first saw it (obviously, I screenshotted it LOL).

So, the subject of this post is ‘Point Form Stuffs’ because I have so many things to touch on that the only way to do it all without this turning into a novel is in point form (hmm… point-form?)

• Niteblade is no longer putting out a print anthology every fifth issue, however payouts for contributors have increased significantly. Linky Linky
• Niteblade also has a twitter account @NitebladeZine (so do I in case you’ve not seen it before @RhondaParrish )
• I decided to work out more and play World of Warcraft less. This has resulted in my having more focus (already, I started yesterday LOL) and actually, finally, beginning my Eowyn Challenge. So I’m now walking from Bag End to Rivendell, following Bilbo’s footsteps in The Hobbit. Why The Hobbit and not Lord of the Rings? Because I couldn’t decide what character to follow for LotR and I needed to make a choice and get started LOL I’ll do LotR next. To make myself feel accountable, I’ve put up a file in my public dropbox that will record my progress. That means, anyone who wants to can see how I’m doing. Clicky Clicky. I’m biking, not walking — I cite the winter weather as my excuse.
• Shades of Green is coming out soon, and I’m trying to think of a way to have a contest to give one away, but I’m not coming up with anything clever. Any ideas?
• NaNoLJers is having a short story contest (Short Story Contest) and since I’m not a judge and the judging is blind I thought I might enter. Alas, I am pretty much stumped. I have the vaguest concept for the story, but not much beyond that. The deadline is the middle of February though, so I have a little time to put something together still. If you write you should think about entering too.
• I’m working on my newsletter today. It should go out by this afternoon. Yay for only being a few days late instead of weeks!

I feel like I’m forgetting stuff…but that seems like a pretty good collection of ‘stuffs’ to share How about you? Do you have any exciting stuffs to share?

Things are a weird (and quite surreal) mixture of incredibly laid-back and stressy-busy around here these days. It’s odd, and not great for productivity. Still, I sent out my newsletter today. It included the cover for Shades of Green (in case anyone missed it) and also the first chapter. I hope everyone enjoys it

In other news, over at Niteblade we are giving away a free .pdf of last year’s December issue, Oh, Christmas Tree. If you don’t already have a copy you can get it at http://www.niteblade.com/news

I won’t be online reliably now until after the New Year, so I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of December and I’ll see you in 2010

Well, NaNo is over, and I’m so happy it is. I was not loving it this year. Okay, that is a huge understatement. I hated it. I resented every minute spent working on ‘NaNo’ stuff. What I really wanted to be doing was sitting and thinking, taking time to let my brain work through some of the details I need to know about the setting and society See The Sky Again is set in, and working on it. That doesn’t work as a NaNoWriMo project. So I started working on rewriting Shadows. Fantastic…until I hit a bump that again, required some time and quiet contemplation. Anyway, I won’t bore you with all the details, but I wrote 50,000 words, crossed the finish line and am seriously thinking about skipping NaNo next year. There was a time in my life I needed it, but I believe that time has passed.

There was, however, a contest

I promised a prize to the person who guessed the day I finished NaNo (or came closest). I wrote my 50,000th word on the 30th. There were a handful of entries, and everyone had more faith in me than they should have, it seems LOL Mindy came the closest, however, when she guessed the 27th. Thank you to everyone who entered, and Mindy, keep an eye on your email.

Lastly, for today. The new Niteblade Anthology, Nothing to Dread is finished and available as a paperback or a download. Yay!