Living Creatively
14 April 2010 @ 08:15 pm
Hey guys, DP is working with some of our authors to do a kind of online mini author con in May. There will be a month long writing challenge with prizes; word wars in the chat room; and various guest chats about writing. We're interested in having many more than one perspective, and one thing we want to do is talk about being inclusive.

I'd love to schedule an hour long chat with a guest who actually knows what he or she is talking about that could be a kind of Race 101 for New Writers. We want many other subjects too, of course, and other chats about race, sex, religion, class, feminism, and other important subjects are also welcome, as well as the usual discussions of character creation, world building, a particular genre, and/or other general writing subjects. You could do it alone or as a panel chat with a group of friends. The chats are moderated and we'll work with your schedule. We plan to schedule the chats at various times on weekends so that we can be welcoming to a global audience.

If you do want to join us, you're free to talk about your press, if you're an editor or publisher, or your books if you're an author. We'll post a bio about you on the website and include links to your information/website of choice.

If you're not interested in being a chat guest, but would be interested in writing a blog post, please let me know.

If any of you are interested please email me at deena@drolleriepress.com. If you know someone else who might be interested, please share this post.

Thanks!
 
 
Living Creatively
24 January 2010 @ 05:39 pm

Every year, DP and I donate something to Brenda Novak’s Auction in support of Juvenile Diabetes research, but this year Brenda tells me the goal is 1 million, so we’re going all out. For the press, we’re offering a couple of manuscript edits, one full length up to 120k words, and one shorter work or partial. I’m personally offering 1. art; 2. an original poster; 3. a WordPress blog or CMS design; 4. a ZenCart or WordPress ecommerce design; and 5. a year of hosting and one domain registration.

Why it’s so important to me is under the cut, but beware. It’s pretty dismal and I whine a bit.

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Mirrored from dlmfisher.com.

 
 
Living Creatively
22 January 2010 @ 07:35 am

Muse and Reverie by Charles de LintThis is an awesome week for me.  First, I won Muse and Reverie by Charles de Lint from Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review, which Tor kindly and speedily shipped to me in a squishy envelope (thanks Graeme!). If you haven’t visited Graeme’s web home, you ought to. He gives away books! All the time!

Lucy Snyder's SpellbentSecond, Lucy Snyder (book list) offered my husband and me a copy of Spellbent (I published one of her short stories. The woman can write.), which also arrived promptly and in good condition, (and which he, knowing me, promptly put into my hot little hands, though it will go on his keeper shelf after I’m done. He’s already read it, the bastard).

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Mirrored from dlmfisher.com.

 
 
Living Creatively
23 December 2009 @ 07:26 pm
Kara asked me to tell her the truth: "No one in my class believes. Is Santa Real?" I assessed her state of mind and told her. I assessed wrong. I backtracked. "Well, you believe, and Daddy's still planning to trap him and stuff him in the closet, so someone's wrong." Her answer: "You are."

Since then, she's been a little antsy. But she came up with a plan.

Kara: I'm going to sleep in the living room on Christmas Eve, with the camera, so I can get a picture and SHOW YOU that Santa's real.

Me: You can't do that! To stay on the nice list, you have to be snug in your bed. You know, "The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads..."?

Kara: I've never in my life had a vision of a sugar plum. I dream of goblins. Goblins! What does that say about which list I'm on? huh?

----

Aidan, about the computer: This freakin' crap is frozen, the freakin' crap!

Over and over, still, after watching the Halloween Peanuts Special: What's my stupid blockhead of a brother doing now? Nick (his big brother) is a stupid blockhead!

About Christmas: Santa's bringing presents and they'll go under the tree.
Me: What will be in them?
Aidan: Barbie pet doctor!

More from Aidan: I love Christmas presents, especially mine.
 
 
Current Mood: contentcontent
 
 
Living Creatively
06 December 2009 @ 08:45 pm
Thanks, Beathen!
 
 
Current Mood: pleasedpleased
 
 
Living Creatively
02 October 2009 @ 08:35 am

Melissa McEwan posted something that I wish I'd had the words for. The key paragraph, for me:

There is the unwillingness to listen, a ferociously stubborn not getting it on so many things, so many important things. And the obdurate refusal to believe, to internalize, that my outrage is not manufactured and my injure not make-believe—an inflexible rejection of the possibility that my pain is authentic, in favor of the consolatory belief that I am angry because I'm a feminist (rather than the truth: that I'm a feminist because I'm angry).


Change "I'm a feminist because I'm angry" to "I'm a lesbian because I'm angry" and you would have what my father believed of me for a good few years. I'm not a lesbian, but he couldn't conceive of an anger so deep that wasn't completely rejecting of men, which in his mind is what a lesbian is--a rejecter of men. It's as if he believes there's a man shaped puzzle piece burnt out of lesbians that they try to fill with other women. It's the inability (not really refusal), the absolute inability to believe that any anger against men for the things that constantly make Melissa McEwan, and me, and many other women, mistrustful of men as a group is a righteous, justified anger. Oh, some women have a right to be angry. He can believe in A woman being angry with A man because that man abused that woman or mistreated that woman, but he can't conceive of a pattern of behavior by many men that might be worth real righteous indignation. Paternalistic eye-rolls? Silly jokes? What's in that to be angry about? He doesn't see the power men have over women as anything but right and proper. Men who abuse the power should be taught better or removed from their sphere of influence because good men use their power for a woman's good.

Yeah. Think about that one for a moment.

 
 
Living Creatively
26 September 2009 @ 01:45 pm
I was behind on a deadline but the children were starving, so I finally got up to make dinner (curse the office being IN the house, however convenient it is to have conference calls in jammies), and this conversation occurred:

Aidan: Are you going to make dinner NOW?

Me: Yes, right after I go to the bathroom.

Aidan: Don't forget to push your penis down!
Tags:
 
 
Current Mood: amusedamused
 
 
Living Creatively
05 September 2009 @ 05:57 pm
I know there are a lot of authors out there doing the pass the rice/buy me a beer/serialized model of publication online, but I've lost track of who and where. I'd like to list some of them in the upcoming issue of  Membra Disjecta. Could you, my so widely-read FL, link me up, please?

Thanks!
 
 
Living Creatively
03 August 2009 @ 12:04 am

I’ve been powering through submissions this weekend, and I decided to do another list in hopes of helping future submitting authors understand what makes a submission an almost instantaneous no. Some of these are probably universal nos, some of them may be just my own quirks. Most of these authors will receive a form letter on Monday morning instead of whatever feedback I can usually find time to provide.

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Mirrored from dlmfisher.com.

 
 
Living Creatively
29 July 2009 @ 06:11 pm

It’s International Blog Against Racism Week, and there are plenty of worthwhile, thought-provoking posts out there in the blogosphere. Many of them are bookmarked on Delicious.

I have always considered myself an ally, though I would never have used that term. I didn’t know that term. I knew people. Different colors of wonderful people. I liked them. They liked me. How utterly clueless of me. I realized how clueless reading along on various blogs about RaceFail 09, and before, and after. Finding good posts and, hopefully, not making an ass of myself in comments. I had other ways to make an ass of myself, I guess. (click to read more… a.k.a. my ass, let me show you it.)

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Mirrored from dlmfisher.com.