.
Just for a special treat Jukka the Finnish stunt kitten brought me in a half grown rat. A smarter soul might have hunted him outside with it and closed the door. Not me. I tried to take it off him.
In the event your kitten brings you a lovely meal, doing his best to provide for the family as they do, take my advice: do not try to take it away.
This is what will happen.
He will drop the rat for you. It will be alive, if not in the best of health, and it will run under the dishwasher. Now you and the kitten will try for hours to get it out, without much luck, while the older, wiser, considerably more obese and less-likely-to-hunt cats watch with interest. Then, about 3.45 am, the Finnish demonspawn will wake you with calls to say he has procured the rat again.
However, now he knows the drill and he will run down the hall to your bedroom with his catch, passing the bathroom where he will meet you coming out. There he will drop the rat for you. Good boy!!
The now mortally wounded rat will scurry into the bathroom and find shelter under the box frame that supports the hot water system. You can’t move that. You cannot even get a vacuum nozzle into the gap between the planks. The rat, God rest his ratty soul, will expire in there and for the next fortnight you will have dead rat decomposing in your bathroom and there is not a thing you can do about it.
Glen Twenty never made an air freshener which ‘kills the germs that cause bad smells’ that is a match for a small dead rat. Sigh.
So, I work down at the opposite end of the house and try not to drink too much tea. If I limit the bathroom visits it is a little less offensive. Quick showers, too. Sadly winter has come early here and I like a long hot shower. Who knew Jukka was secretly a green crusader?
What makes Jukka’s early morning escapades even more amusing is that I tend to reverse the natural order a bit when I am writing. I like to write from about 7 or 8pm until 3in the morning. No distractions. Then I get up for the morning rush, and back to bed until 11. It might be antisocial but it works.
Not if you have to get up again several times between 3 and 6.30am. I say again, do not ever name a kitten after a stunt person.
Meanwhile, I have been getting to know the community of writers who contribute to eFiction, the premier indie fiction magazine.
eFiction recently celebrated its first full year of production and is going from strength to strength. It has been available in pdf, epub and for kindle, but as of next month, the format will be changing.
Here is what is going to happen, from Doug Lance, founder and editor:
If you haven’t checked out eFiciton yet, do yourself a big favour and download your free copy, or back issues. Or why not join the authors' community. Submit work for publication, or to the workshop forum, or hang out in the coffee shop for a chat about all things writery.
While eFiction is primarily a venue for web based fiction, it comfortably straddles the divide between the virtual and real world, discussing and encouraging participation in all independent writing scenes.
At 1889 Labs there have been fun and games all week, with the Party Like it’s 1889 May promotion. Last week was pirate week with giveaways galore. This week it is time for Greg X Graves to host the show with Bears, Recycling and Confusing Time Paradoxes.
From 1889 Labs:
Did someone say PRIZES? #hellyes
There are dozens of ways to win and over ten amazing prizes!
Every week we’ll be giving away one paperback of your choosing, a $10 Amazon voucher, plus some must-have ebooks!
Not enough for you? Well, we’re also running a grand giveaway across all four weeks! Up for grabs this month only:
3rd Place: A backstage pass! Get an advance ebook copy of the next title we’ll publish in June 2011!
2nd Place: A VIP ticket, granting you access to advance copies of every ebook we’ll publish this year, before anyone else gets ahold of them! You can’t say no to 10+ free ebooks!
1st Place: A VIP ticket for 10+ free advance ebooks as outlined above aaaand…. a KINDLE!! #yesreally
Join the fun!
Want a chance to win that Kindle? You know you do!
Enter the grand giveaway NOW!
1. Leave a comment on every post we publish this month with the pink Party Like It’s 1889 logo — including THIS post! Each comment is worth one entry into the grand giveaway!
2. Get tweeting! Use the hashtag #1889party and get your friends involved! Each tweet counts as one entry!
3. Visit often! Nearly every day we’ll have a new post up with author interviews, behind-the-scenes information, games, giveaways and lots of extra little tricks to earn more chances of winning!
4. Want TEN instant extra entries? Go to our facebook page and post a photo of yourself reading an 1889 Labs book — either in print or ebook!
Own more than one 1889 Labs book? Post a picture for each for even more chances to win that luscious Kindle, those VIP tickets, and backstage pass!
And if you’re camera-shy? Put up a photo of your cat reading our book instead. Or your teddy bear. Or your cactus plant. If it’s got our book, we’re happy.
What’s that, you say? You don’t own any of our books? Sheesh! What rock have you been hiding under?
To recap: every party-related comment or tweet is worth 1 entry, and every photo you upload to Facebook is worth 10!
The deadline for all entries is May 31 at 11:59pm EDT so get cracking, and get snapping! You want that Kindle, don’t you?!
Week 1: Typhoon by MCM
Week 2: Bears, Recycling and Confusing Time Paradoxes by Greg X Graves
Week 3: Intern With The Vampire by Kit Iwasaki
Week 4: Hungry For You by A.M. Harte
It is scary to imagine just how much fun there will be next week. You’ll never know if you never go!! So GO!! Now.
Everyone should be holding their combined artloving breath for the release of Penny Goring’s The Zoom Zoom on June 1st at eight cuts. This is some of the finest writing in the ether at the moment. Don’t be the only one who didn’t have the good fortune to read Penny’s work. It is extraordinary.
And finally, I have become addicted to the sip sip sip-feed format of flashing by. With written contributions by Dan Leo, Kathleen Maher, the amazing Peter Greene, et al, and photo journalism from the also amazing nooshin azadi, and graphic strips of all kinds from rhoda penmarq, roy dismas and a host of colourful characters, I find myself flitting back every timemy concentration lapses I have a spare moment, just to see if anything new has been posted. Superb work from an exciting creative team. A little noir, a little dada, a little Duchamp and Dali, a little weird, a lot of 60s French pop of course, and always entertaining.
There's more, I'm sure. All over the internet the most brilliant and exciting people are doing their bit to further the cause of high quality independent fiction. I haven't been reading nearly as much as I would like in the last couple of weeks, or following the bright lights who watch the tides and comment, but it's all still out there. Go have a look for yourself.
For readers of Letitia Coyne fiction - news soon. It's more muscle and horses, leather and armour and swords, but hey - when did that ever get old?
Cheers,
And as Leonard Cohen said:
It looks like freedom but it feels like death,
It's something in between I guess.
It's closing time.
I think there's something in that for everyone....
Lxx
.
Just for a special treat Jukka the Finnish stunt kitten brought me in a half grown rat. A smarter soul might have hunted him outside with it and closed the door. Not me. I tried to take it off him.
In the event your kitten brings you a lovely meal, doing his best to provide for the family as they do, take my advice: do not try to take it away.
This is what will happen.
He will drop the rat for you. It will be alive, if not in the best of health, and it will run under the dishwasher. Now you and the kitten will try for hours to get it out, without much luck, while the older, wiser, considerably more obese and less-likely-to-hunt cats watch with interest. Then, about 3.45 am, the Finnish demonspawn will wake you with calls to say he has procured the rat again.
However, now he knows the drill and he will run down the hall to your bedroom with his catch, passing the bathroom where he will meet you coming out. There he will drop the rat for you. Good boy!!
The now mortally wounded rat will scurry into the bathroom and find shelter under the box frame that supports the hot water system. You can’t move that. You cannot even get a vacuum nozzle into the gap between the planks. The rat, God rest his ratty soul, will expire in there and for the next fortnight you will have dead rat decomposing in your bathroom and there is not a thing you can do about it.
Glen Twenty never made an air freshener which ‘kills the germs that cause bad smells’ that is a match for a small dead rat. Sigh.
So, I work down at the opposite end of the house and try not to drink too much tea. If I limit the bathroom visits it is a little less offensive. Quick showers, too. Sadly winter has come early here and I like a long hot shower. Who knew Jukka was secretly a green crusader?
What makes Jukka’s early morning escapades even more amusing is that I tend to reverse the natural order a bit when I am writing. I like to write from about 7 or 8pm until 3in the morning. No distractions. Then I get up for the morning rush, and back to bed until 11. It might be antisocial but it works.
Not if you have to get up again several times between 3 and 6.30am. I say again, do not ever name a kitten after a stunt person.
Meanwhile, I have been getting to know the community of writers who contribute to eFiction, the premier indie fiction magazine.
eFiction recently celebrated its first full year of production and is going from strength to strength. It has been available in pdf, epub and for kindle, but as of next month, the format will be changing.
Here is what is going to happen, from Doug Lance, founder and editor:
Alright guys, I just want to let y’all know that we are going to be debuting a new format for the new issue whereby we forgo the Issuu.com presentation of the magazine and instead post each story in full text directly onto the website throughout the month. … The Kindle edition will still be available from the first of the month as always.
Also, with separate like buttons, retweet dongles, and comments, the authors of stories will be able to promote their own story explicitly as well as receive feedback in the comments from their readership.
At the end of the month, we’ll post the final PDF and EPUB versions of the magazine for all to enjoy and download.
If you haven’t checked out eFiciton yet, do yourself a big favour and download your free copy, or back issues. Or why not join the authors' community. Submit work for publication, or to the workshop forum, or hang out in the coffee shop for a chat about all things writery.
While eFiction is primarily a venue for web based fiction, it comfortably straddles the divide between the virtual and real world, discussing and encouraging participation in all independent writing scenes.
At 1889 Labs there have been fun and games all week, with the Party Like it’s 1889 May promotion. Last week was pirate week with giveaways galore. This week it is time for Greg X Graves to host the show with Bears, Recycling and Confusing Time Paradoxes.
From 1889 Labs:
Did someone say PRIZES? #hellyes
There are dozens of ways to win and over ten amazing prizes!
Every week we’ll be giving away one paperback of your choosing, a $10 Amazon voucher, plus some must-have ebooks!
Not enough for you? Well, we’re also running a grand giveaway across all four weeks! Up for grabs this month only:
3rd Place: A backstage pass! Get an advance ebook copy of the next title we’ll publish in June 2011!
2nd Place: A VIP ticket, granting you access to advance copies of every ebook we’ll publish this year, before anyone else gets ahold of them! You can’t say no to 10+ free ebooks!
1st Place: A VIP ticket for 10+ free advance ebooks as outlined above aaaand…. a KINDLE!! #yesreally
Join the fun!
Want a chance to win that Kindle? You know you do!
Enter the grand giveaway NOW!
1. Leave a comment on every post we publish this month with the pink Party Like It’s 1889 logo — including THIS post! Each comment is worth one entry into the grand giveaway!
2. Get tweeting! Use the hashtag #1889party and get your friends involved! Each tweet counts as one entry!
3. Visit often! Nearly every day we’ll have a new post up with author interviews, behind-the-scenes information, games, giveaways and lots of extra little tricks to earn more chances of winning!
4. Want TEN instant extra entries? Go to our facebook page and post a photo of yourself reading an 1889 Labs book — either in print or ebook!
Own more than one 1889 Labs book? Post a picture for each for even more chances to win that luscious Kindle, those VIP tickets, and backstage pass!
And if you’re camera-shy? Put up a photo of your cat reading our book instead. Or your teddy bear. Or your cactus plant. If it’s got our book, we’re happy.
What’s that, you say? You don’t own any of our books? Sheesh! What rock have you been hiding under?
To recap: every party-related comment or tweet is worth 1 entry, and every photo you upload to Facebook is worth 10!
The deadline for all entries is May 31 at 11:59pm EDT so get cracking, and get snapping! You want that Kindle, don’t you?!
Week 1: Typhoon by MCM
Week 2: Bears, Recycling and Confusing Time Paradoxes by Greg X Graves
Week 3: Intern With The Vampire by Kit Iwasaki
Week 4: Hungry For You by A.M. Harte
It is scary to imagine just how much fun there will be next week. You’ll never know if you never go!! So GO!! Now.
Everyone should be holding their combined artloving breath for the release of Penny Goring’s The Zoom Zoom on June 1st at eight cuts. This is some of the finest writing in the ether at the moment. Don’t be the only one who didn’t have the good fortune to read Penny’s work. It is extraordinary.
And finally, I have become addicted to the sip sip sip-feed format of flashing by. With written contributions by Dan Leo, Kathleen Maher, the amazing Peter Greene, et al, and photo journalism from the also amazing nooshin azadi, and graphic strips of all kinds from rhoda penmarq, roy dismas and a host of colourful characters, I find myself flitting back every time
There's more, I'm sure. All over the internet the most brilliant and exciting people are doing their bit to further the cause of high quality independent fiction. I haven't been reading nearly as much as I would like in the last couple of weeks, or following the bright lights who watch the tides and comment, but it's all still out there. Go have a look for yourself.
For readers of Letitia Coyne fiction - news soon. It's more muscle and horses, leather and armour and swords, but hey - when did that ever get old?
Cheers,
And as Leonard Cohen said:
It looks like freedom but it feels like death,
It's something in between I guess.
It's closing time.
I think there's something in that for everyone....
Lxx
.
3 comments:
letitia,
thanks for the kind words re flashing by. they are much appreciated!
Sounds like some folks are better equipped at web publishing than I am. I can't even get a twitter bird to appear for me. Some magician.
Enjoyed the kitten story! Rat hint: open the window in there and run a space heater for a few days. He'll mummify nicely. Only do this if you have bug screens, or he will get more flies than a rotten potato.
Or turn loose thousands of tiny metal soldiers, charged with hacking apart and carting away the dead beast, only to be thrown, begrimed and unthanked, back in to their ancient tin box. That works too.
Talk to you later -
P
Ah, now, you see you have had a long physical and philosophical battle with ants. I have always owned big dogs who leave a lot of large piles in the yard. Being reluctant to shovel and remove, I was delighted to find that my local ants are voracious eaters of dog leavings, reducing a large pile to dust in a day or two. Those same ants, having discovered my rat - probably from several miles away the way he smells - are in the process of removing him for me, as we speak. Gotta love nature! They take him out, bit by bit, under the laundry door, day and night. Imagine what I would have to pay them if they were on penalty rates!
Post a Comment