I’m like totally fer sure

Over the weekend, I got to see Berlin in concert. I had a fantastic time.

More importantly, I got to wear a ‘like totally’ 80s dress.

Which reminded me that I really gotta take more pictures.

busy girl

After cancan-ing my little heart out at WorldCon last month and then enjoying a visit from my parental units this past week, I’m pretty darn exhausted, but pleased.

Otherness: Rift comes out in less than two months and I’m beside myself with glee!

‘Course there’s also tons of work to be done in preparation for that big day, but one step at a time is all I can handle right now.

As I’ve blogged before, I’m currently producing a wine review video podcast website at www.wineass.com and good golly has that kept me busy in such an awesome way. I love to learn and much learning I have done. Perhaps there’s a novel or two in the experience as well.

And I’ve been sewing… Not just my Leeloo {from 5th Element}-Does-Cancan costume (still awaiting pictures ’cause we had a camera meltdown at WorldCon). I’m trying to shovel out my beautiful craft room and in order to do that, these projects new and old need to either be finished or tossed.

I’m votin’ for finished.

First up: A pair of jungle green satin pants with a royal blue lace overlay–complete with appliques. Sounds kinda bizarre, huh? It probably will be. I’m not far enough along to know for sure!

Pardon my little chuckle here, but I’m multi-tasking… I’m exporting a freshly edited video while blogging and while waiting for my iron to heat up. I feel like some odd combination of techno/textile geekage has come over me.

And I LOVE it!

Life changes, sometimes quickly

I haven’t forsaken my blog, I swear it. I just got very sick and then very busy. During those sick weeks, my life sort of got rearranged…for the better, but it’s just not the same thing it was before RT.

Part of the change was because I agreed to do something rather odd… I agreed to dance the Cancan while costumed as Leeloo from the Fifth Element. Come to WorldCon and catch the costume Masquerade. The show I’m dancing in is the half-time show.

Yeah. Not only am I soooooo not a dancer, I also had to build my costume. Believe me, cancan dresses are quite involved. I’m about half way through construction and while I love it, good grief, what a lot of work!

But the one thing I can say for certain is that I’m learning a lot. A helluva lot.

Also, in the life changing department, Jason and I plus a couple friends have started up a wine review site featuring video podcasts. We’re trying to break the barrier between wine snobs and the general public. We don’t want to use colorful language (ie. our reviewer would never describe the ‘nose’ of a wine, he’d say, “smells like…”) and we want to be accessible to everyone, not just people with boatloads of money.

See for yourself at wineass.com.

I’ve learned so much just in these last couple months, it’s incredible. I have learned how to edit video and sew a mean pair of bloomers.

But, I tell ya, I can’t wait until September…or at least until after WorldCon so that my life can chill out and get back to…uh…well…”normal”.

Off to RT!

It’s do or die now.

The wardrobe has been carefully chosen and packed.

The shoes are to die for.

I think I’m ready.

I think.

No. I know I am. ‘Cause if my bags are packed, I’m totally there!!!!!!!!!!

See ya’ll upon my return! I have sooooo much posting to do.

LaLaCon 2006

This past weekend was a blast! My hubby, Jason Stoddard, was the Writer Guest of Honor at LalaCon 2006 and I got to sit in on a couple of panels with him.

This con is a very relaxed, fun one that I’ve done for two years in a row now and absolutely love it. Of my favorite moments, one of the best was discussing the future of writing with Jason, John DeChancie, George Van Wagner and Larry Niven. Had this been more of a writing conference, that would’ve made for a fantastic panel discussion with all of us having different ideas. Very fascinating stuff.

Here’s a shot of the panel I did with Jason. Special thanks to fellow Fictionado George Van Wagner for snapping this pic!

We’re seated at the head of the hall where all LASFS (Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society) meetings are held. Jason was probably talking about his short stories or the novel he just finished. Me, however, I’m listening intently, trying to think up another question to ask, but failing miserably. This con is so relaxing, it relaxed all the good questions out of my brain!

Okay, I can’t resist… I need to point out and explain a few things in the shot. Starting with the buttons on my shoulders. One’s the con nametag. The other is my geeky scrolling LED badge that I tried out for the first time this weekend. Definitely a worthwhile purchase. It’ll get loads of use at the Romantic Times Booklover Convention in a few weeks.

Also of odd note, the way I’m sitting… I had no idea that yoga has permeated into my regular habits. Also, of note are my shoes. Outside the panel, I was engaged in a conversation about them. They are real Victorian shoes and are super duper narrow and pointy. They might not be quite 1800s, but darn close to it. They aren’t copies, they’re the real deal. I can’t believe they’re in such great shape for their age, either. I love them to pieces, but can only wear them once or twice a year for fear of damaging them.

I’ll be getting to my bits of England soon. There are so many pics, I might just have to choose random shots from all of my trips there.

In other news not quite suitable to announce on my website because it isn’t really worth shouting about just yet, my new novel, _Otherness:Rift_, has a cover even though it won’t be coming out until this Fall. I’m so excited! I’ll share the artwork as soon as it’s officially finished.

Duh…

I did have something newsworthy to report and I have no idea how I neglected it!

Okay, other than that I hadn’t been sure which day Jason had a book signing with Tim Powers until the day was upon us…which had made it very difficult to mark my calendar and mention it here ahead of time. And with the constant flow of life’s activities lately there hasn’t been much time to dwell on events past.

Over the weekend, Jason Stoddard got to share a signing table with Tim Powers. And good golly, I had a wonderful time with Tim and his wife, Serena. They’re a hoot!

I’m still kicking myself for bringing my camera, but forgetting to snap pics. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duuuuuuuuuh.

Next time, of course.

The store, Bookman in Orange, CA, was phenomenal! I scored some Jude Devereaux titles I’d been needing to replace since a rather unfortunate spring cleaning accident a few years ago in which a bag of ‘keepers’ got tossed because it was next to a bag of ‘giveaways’. In most cases, I even managed to match the old covers, too.

See, it’s Jude Devereux’s fault for hooking me on romance. I was in either 8th or 9th grade–perhaps the summer between the two–when my best friend (the other half of Ashleigh Raine) loaned me KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR–which actually belonged to one of her friends and she was worried she’d get in trouble for loaning it to me without asking first. Well, I got it on a weekend and gave it back the following weekend. From then on, I was hooked. Time travel. Romance. I was soooooooooooooooo into that!

A few years later, I discovered Virginia Henley–who at RT 2005 judged my costume as one of the winners! Needless to say, I was in absolute awe.

Oops! I digressed… Sorry, I got a little excited. Books take a person to more places than just the fictional worlds therein.

Anyhow, the signing was fantastic–got to meet a lot of people and then talk amongst ourselves over pizza afterward. That was tons of fun.

…And I’ve already learned a thing or two from the big fat sewing book from 1972 that Jason sprung for. I swear times have changed so much that I get more use out of old sewing books than new ones!

Derailed!

And I’d thought the shirt patterns were tops of my list for when I got my sewing room shovelled out. Ha! Instead, I …uh… ‘merged’ a shirt and dress from the late 60s/early 70s and created a coat. Perfect for spring!

I really wish I had more to report. Life’s gotten busy, but mundane and boring. By the end of this month, I’m sure I’ll be wishing for mundania, but in the mean time, I hope all is well with everyone!

Digging out, and it

In effort to get organized, I’ve begun cleaning out my sewing room. It’s a very long process because the room has been neglected for years–lots of writing instead of cleaning or sewing.

Anyhow, as I worked to the bottom of the heap of detritus I called “sewing projects”, I discovered three patterns I’d purchased and obviously forgotten shortly thereafter.

Inspiration and motivation come in strange ways.

The sooner I get the room straightened out, the sooner I can make those patterns, the sooner I can wear the shirts–most likely to conventions and signings, too!

Plus, making those shirts will create some free space in my stacks of fabric, and good golly I need it!!!

Sometimes it’s the little things…

Dungeon Majesty!

At the time, I hadn’t realized what I’d gotten myself into–other than a lot of fun–but as half of Ashleigh Raine, I was interviewed for a show called Dungeon Majesty.

After receiving an email about a screening they’re doing on March 23rd in Hollywood, I checked out their site again…it had been awhile since last I’d visited. In fact, it’d been so long that I didn’t remember what it looked like last time I was there.

Anyhow, on this trip, I discovered two of their episodes and zowie-wowie, I can’t wait to see the other ones. They’ve got something like 8 done. Only 2 are up on their site, though.

All I gotta do now is start planning my outfit for the screening next month. You see, when they interviewed me, I was wearing the infamous swirl dress and I need to make sure I’m wearing something as…uh…stellar.

Or at least barbaric or magical!

Look! 2 in 1 day!

I love making the best of what I’ve got…or taking a nothing and adding elbow grease until that nothing sure is something.

On Christmas Eve, I’d gone thrift shopping and picked up a handmade tent of a dress for about $2. Hell, it might’ve even been the one I got free in the buy-one-get-one-free deal. Anyhow, over the weekend, I dove into it. The lady who’d made it–probably some time in the late 70s-early 80s judging by the fabric and the cut of the collar and cuffs–had thought she was making a dress.

Well, me being itty-bitty, I often buy big $2 dresses to make them smaller or salvage the cool fabric or whatever. In this case, when I pulled out the dress to really look at it, my first thought was “The lady who made this got it all wrong. It’s not a dress. It’s a jacket!”

Roughly 5 hours over three days later, I have a damn kickass jacket which I was going to post a picture of because it turned out a million times better than I’d expected, but darn-it-all straight to hell and then some, I can’t find my camera! I have no idea what I did with it.

Ugh.

But on Saturday, I’ll be at the BookLadies, signing as half of Ashleigh Raine and I’m gonna wear it there…so someone’s bound to get a picture of it somehow.

Good golly, I hope so at least!