Filling the Well

I have a headache. I blame daylight savings time and oversleeping for the last three days. And then the dog threw up. (And this is why I try to avoid blogging about every day mundanities. I’d rather you think my life was dashing and scintillating.)

So today, links:

The Fake Memoirist’s Survival Guide. Or you could do what a lot of us do and write, you know, fiction.

Things I Will Do When I am the Vampire. Much like the famed Evil Overlord List.

How to Destroy the Earth. I think this may be my favorite website ever.

Have you been keeping up with American Hero?

I’ve been researching Colorado parole laws. For, you know, no particular reason…

The chat yesterday marked my last seriously scheduled obligation for a while. I have a shindig this weekend that I have to do some sewing for, but other than that…I get to relax. Actually, I get to tackle a last minute writing project. But that’s cool. Actually, what happens is I get a stretch of time where I think I can relax, but I find I’ve scheduled all the stuff that I couldn’t schedule from when I was busy. (Like taking Lily to get her claws trimmed, which we did this morning. What a huge trauma that can be.)

Anyway, the chat yesterday went well. Apparently, I give good chat. Or people were just being polite. I do have a copy of it, and I just need to figure out the best way to post it, because it’s very long and cuts don’t seem to be working for me. I shall ponder.

In the meantime, I’m off to research reality TV show websites. Yes, it’s actually really work! Honest!

My brain seems to be a bit off today. I think I’m coming down with a cold. I have all sorts of what I’m sure are deeply fascinating posts planned, and can’t seem to focus on any of them long enough to get past titles. So, in lieu of anything intelligent, I give you a selection of my bookmarked links:

The Skeptic’s Dictionary. Decades’ worth of story ideas in one stop.

Old West Slang. I use this less for writing and more for Firefly role-playing.

Starship Dimensions. My favorite geeky website. See how the Gunstar would hold up to an Imperial Star Destroyer.

Badmovies.org. Nuff said.

Planet Project. A list of extra-solar planets. There are more than you think.

How to Destroy the Earth. You know, just in case.

The Faerie Queene. Spenser’s great epic poem. Searchable!

A Dress a Day. I’m envious of her passion for her subject (vintage dresses). She’s also a really good writer. Check out “The Secret Lives of Dresses.”

The Long Riders’ Guild. In order to join this group, you have to make a journey on horseback of at least a thousand miles. Right now, there are dozens of people all over the world making epic journeys on horses. I wish everyone who writes epic fantasy involving long journeys on horseback would look at this site.

Today, I was going to talk all about this really cool Christmas present I found for my Dad.

Then I realized, my Dad probably reads this.

Okay, so a friend of mine insists that science fiction writers are the worst Luddites because they spend so much time thinking about how technology can go horribly horribly wrong.

I confess to being technologically remedial. I just got a cell phone last year, and only because my mother made me.

So, this is to say that I think I got the RSS feed linky set up (at the bottom of the right hand column). If it doesn’t work, please let me know. ‘Cause I’m not quite sure it works…

On a totally different topic, “The Bourne Ultimatum” is what a smart movie looks like.

So what do I do? I start a blog and then immediately go on vacation for a couple of weeks. I’m purposefully not taking my laptop, because I’ll be hiking and horseback riding and whalewatching in Alaska, and it just seems so wrong to have my laptop along for that.

I’ll end up in Portland visiting family, where I’ll be back on the grid.

Hopefully things won’t break while I’m gone, and when I get back I’ll have more time to play around with this and make it all pretty and useful and stuff. And I’ll have pictures from the trip, so stay tuned!

Why start a blog now?  Well, all the cool kids are doing it.  Actually, that’s a reason I haven’t done it before now.  It’s also the reason I’m the last person I know to get a CD player, and the reason I didn’t wear jelly shoes and leg warmers in the sixth grade.  I’m suspicious of popularity.  I’m a bit of a Luddite.  And I have no time!!!!

 But I had a lot of practical reasons as well:

• I’ve been keeping a bedside journal since I was about 15.  I know what goes in there.  It would be very unfortunate if that sort of thing were to bleed into an online journal.  It’s nothing terrible, really, but rather a lot of manic-depressive whinging that would have my friends calling me and asking if I maybe ought to be medicated.  I’d rather avoid that.
• I’ve noticed that the best blogs are updated daily with really interesting commentary on life, the universe, and everything.  I’m not sure I’m that smart or good at time management. My most profound comments seem to be things like, “28 Weeks Later sucked rocks!”
• I can’t really believe that anyone is interested in how many words I wrote today.  And I’d also like to avoid the semi-regular writer community internet slapfights.  Who has time for this?
• I don’t think I could stand the pain of seeing “0 comments” day after day.  This from the person who is suspicious of popularity.
• And I have no time!!!!

So why now?  Because I thought about it.  Then once I started thinking about it I started going around my days and weeks thinking, “Hey, I could write a little bit about the Denver Roller Dolls and the Kittie concert and seeing Towering Inferno for the first time, the trip to Vegas, Steven Erikson making me take back every bad thing I’ve ever said about doorstopper fantasy, and realizing I love ELO and Led Zeppelin… 

 And here’s what I realized:  all of this stuff goes into making my books and stories.  It all goes into the mix eventually.  A writer’s blog is (let’s be honest) mostly about self promotion and saying “Hey!  Here’s me!  Here are my books!  Here’s me signing my books!  Love me!  Please!”  But it should also be about being a writer and the writing life.  And being a writer means you’re never off duty, you’re always working, and you’re always working because you love it, and every day is about filling the well so you’ll always have ideas for the next story, the next project.  Ideas are like oxygen because they’re everywhere, and they feed fires.

So.  That’s me.  That’s what I want my blog to be about.  This is a glimpse into my well.