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!

Pushing my envelope…with geese and stripes

I’ve decided to embark upon a new project…along with all my current ones as Rina Slayter and with Ashleigh Raine.

I’m gonna write some short stuff for a change. Yeah, as half of Ashleigh Raine, I’ve written some stories less than 15k, but I’m talking ultra-short here.

The other day, I was dinking around my files and ran across a great opening sentence (I’d put it here, but then there’d be nothing to discover when the story gets posted) that I’d filed away. It wasn’t going to suit a novel. No way. But flash fic…oh hell yeah.

So I wrote it.

And because I type so fast, I wrote, edited and got through my second draft in about an hour. Another couple passes and I’ll probably end up killing its magic rather than growing it.

That little experiment taught me that while I call myself a novel-writer, I can also write flash. But anything in between and readers will need a clothespin for their nose so they won’t have to smell the crappiness of my work. Funny, huh?

Actually, not really. It took me some hard thinking to figure out how I could possibly write ultra-short so easily. I’d assumed it’d be agony to go from novel down to flash, but really, it wasn’t.

Because I write my books scene by scene. They’re micro-stories in themselves. They don’t stand on their own, but they are mini-stories. Applying that skill, plus the fact that most of my scenes chime in between 1 and 3 thousand words, it’s really not much of a stretch (or in this case shrink) to stay under 1K.

My greatest nemesis at this moment is finding the time to churn these things out. I’m up to my eyeballs in workload and backlog at the moment, but perhaps in the New Year, I’ll have some to post to my website.

I’ve already started a list of story ideas, characters and opening sentences that’d work for ultra-shorts. I can’t wait for a moment to really work on them!

And today marks the first day I’ve gotten the nerve to wear my geese with stripes shirt. I wish I had a camera handy so that I could snag a pic of it and post it to my site. The shirt fits great and there’s geese…and stripes…on polyester. What more could a girl like me ask for?

A Virtual Costume Masquerade

So, I’m hanging out with Jason and some friends in the dealer room at LosCon over this past weekend and a man approaches me. He’s got a video camera and wants to know if I’d like to participate in the virtual costume masquerade.

The first thought that went through my head was, “Costume? What costume? I’m wearing a costume? This is a costume?” and I looked down at my get-up.

Pointy, low, black leather boots, red with black alligator print pants, black and white half shirt and a floor-length, black, laced-up, gothic-esque jacket.

While I was still too utterly stunned for words, one of my buddies said, “Costume? That’s her regular clothes!”

And that was so dog gone true!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It took me another fifteen seconds to fully process the whole thing and in the end, I was in the masquerade, but still found it surreal and amusing. If I’d known there was a virtual masquerade, I’d’ve worn something more costume-esque! Or at least geese with stripes…

Oh well. There’s always next year!

A visit from my parents

My parental units visited this week and I got to play tourguide here around LA.

And I had no idea where to take them, but they had a few ideas of where they wanted to go. We hit up Chinatown and the garment district so we could get some beads. I’ve got a bunch of clothes that I wanna embellish and my mom wants to make some bracelets. We came home and my mom asked if I had some beads that’d be good for bracelets. I calmly reminded her that I’ve been collecting beads since I was in 4th grade.

We went into my craft room and I started pulling out tray after tray after tray of more beads than she’d ever seen outside of a bead store. I had fun and designed a couple bracelets for her. I’m real quick at beadwork. I’ve been doing it since I was in grade school. I used to take apart all the old jewelry she and my grandma had given to me. Some of those old beads are still in my collection ready to be reused for the fifteenth time in some new creation.

When my mom left the craft room, she was overwhelmed, but quite pleased. I can’t wait to hear how adventures in bracelet making go.

The other day, my mom had suggested touring a Hollywood studio, but my dad vetoed for reasons I can’t remember. Anyhow, they got a taste of Hollywood anyway because when we went to Santa Monica, Alias happened to be shooting at the end of the pier. We watched a few takes and then continued on after my mom snapped pictures.

As we approached the set, I thought it’d be nifty to be there as a tourist rather than an extra, but that changed when I got up close. I felt like such a dork. I might as well have been in a Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, white socks pulled to the knee and a camera around my neck. Oh well. It was still fun and the first time I was on a set while not on the clock.

Now, I’m back to the old grind and life is very, very good.

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