Free Reads: July 2008

No short stories finished recently, several in progress though.

However — I got pomes! Yes, once I wrote the pomes; no, I am not pohet. Interesting story about the Breughel one that’s amused me for several years now (and a lesson I keep on failing to learn as applied to fiction writing), but that story will be told some other day.

Here, if you care to indulge, are some free reads, some pomes:

Hush Little Garden

Breughel

The Boozin Blues

Ellen Datlow introduces the Nebula Awards Showcase 2009.

It’s been a bit of a headache trying to find the right blog post to open the Nebula Blog with, but I think this is one is fitting.

Now we just need to work on some communication lapses but…brick by brick, my citizens, brick by brick..

Robin Wayne Bailey, interviewed by Leslie What

The magazine formerly known as Apex Digest, has raised its payment to minimum pro rates — 5c/ word — and has gone online. So now they really are Apex Online.

It’s a good move for them, I believe, there’s more room for growth and a larger readership for a semi-prozine on the interwebs. What peeves me a little bit, is it seems they will also be posting stories on Mondays.

So — Strange Horizons, Fantasy and Apex: all on Monday. Is Monday official story day in America or what?

Speaking of Fantasy, check out their new website — looks stunning, in my opinion.

I’m a bit disappointed to see they removed the Sharethis button, which I personally think has so much potential. Suppose they had their reasons, especially since Sharethis upgraded their services a couple of weeks ago and now include the option to share/ link to blogs, such as wordpress, blogger, or livejournal.

Most of the time when people link to stories they like, it is on their blogs, and now that Sharethis finally allows the option to shoot a link straight to your blog..well, it is a pity. Clarkesworld still has it, although they’re using the older one.

(Mind you, sharethis isn’t all that easy to install on some systems; absolute child’s play on wordpress, but with the Nebula site I’m scratching my head figuring out where the code snippet has to go. Hopefully the designer knows.)

This is the fascinating thing about net-tools: they are out there, hordes of them and they can do oh so much. But a very large number you have to tag, and keep checking back, be a little patient (ha! like that is in keeping with net mentality, where every conversation older than 30 days is null and void, and the drive is for now!now!now! rather than permanence) and wait for them to sort their stuff out and do what you want them to do how you want them to do it.

Some good examples here would be Shelfari, who is getting better all the time, or Retaggr, a very promising idea that still needs some work.

Amazing Grace, designed by Vladimir Prelovac:

And since he’s using it currently, you can get to see what it looks like and I can do 2 themes today:cool:

What I like about this theme:

The coloring is soft and soothing, and notice — it’s not the dark schematic, so beloved by most every SF&F&Horror writer (Prelovac is not a writer, to the best of my knowledge, just saying in general it’s something that struck me even in my own choices at times). The layout is excellent, and the text displays really well.

The feed button is very prominent on top. Header display is good. The theme comes with a few social bookmark buttons built in already, surprising and handy. As you scroll down the posts there, you’ll see the “Continue Reading” sign, similar to an lj-cut, although wordpress prefers to call it Read More. That’s built into the theme as well — I don’t have to use cuts, it supplies them automatically. Not a bad idea, actually, now that I get a good look at it (and having looked at mine too).

Post categories and comments show up prominently.

Overall, just a really understated, soft design and I like it.

There are some problems with the theme:

Requiring some work to be done by the user.

See the top navigation bar above the header, leading to the different main pages? That doesn’t come with the theme. Only the Home button (taking you back to the front page, an absolute must-have in my opinion), comes by default. To add the others, you’ll have to build a navbar it looks like; also in the footer he’s got some important details — those aren’t standard with this theme either.

What I found most bizarre about Amazing Grace is that it displays the first of your blogging categories on top, just beneath the header and before the main body of text. That…might suit some people but it’s something I’ll remove from this theme if I can.

Nebula Theme:

not sure who designed it, can’t remember where I found it. This is my current one. Not overly nuts about it, but it’s okay.

Coloring is a bit dark, not like Darkwater dark, which is actually quite nice, but this one is just plain dark. So — ideal for a SF&F writer then.

This one displays the post texts in the centre, with the sidebars to left and right. This is similar to my livejournal then. I…can’t make up my mind whether I prefer this, or prefer to have all the sidebars on one side.

Similar problem to most wordpress themes, this one doesn’t have a top navigation bar. I’m beginning to really like that separation myself: top navigation bar contains information on the website and blogger; stuff in the sidebar is all kinds of extras and goodies meant for the consumer/ reader.

Don’t know what other people’s thoughts on that matter is.

Additionally, the text in the sidebars of the Nebula theme are really, really small. And yellow.

It’s an okay theme, and I’ll probably keep it but I’m not nuts over it. It’s got the basic functionalities, is inoffensive in look and can be customized. It’s just so…geeky.

And there we are, two more themes in one day.

This is the first post I’ve written since upgrading to Wordpress 2.6. Couple new features added:

1) wordcount for posts: this one is now exactly 561. cool.

2) My Theme Driver plugin is now obsolete, WP 2.6 includes a theme previewer, so you get to see what your site will look like before activating a new theme. This? This is very handy. Takes long to load though.

3) The plugin menu is much, much improved, separating the actives from the inactives and allowing bulk management.

from a meme I snitched off TL Morganfield. The way the answers were going I was preparing to get Mordred. This…is better (??) well, at least me and RF Long are….sisters. siblings. similar.

Your result for The Camelot Test…

Lady of the Lake

Take The Camelot Test at HelloQuizzy

http://www.everydayfiction.com/the-chupacabra-in-love-by-ac-wise/

The Chupacabra is in love, so in love not even the taste of goatmeat has as much appeal as the voice of his beloved. The Chupacabra is in love…with a goatherder.

A little funny, a bit sad, very sweet. A solid read.

Russel Davis’ platform for SFWA president placed a lot of emphasis on re-structuring and getting the organization internally into shape. That restucturing and revamping is coming along, as can be seen from his post to the sfwa livejournal community.

I see they put a lot of thought into redoing the Bulletin. From the little I’ve seen of it, that’s a good thing. It’s a cute little mag, if a bit biased to SF over Fantasy, but some interesting and useful items. The new proposal looks very good though, and the Bulletin’s website has also had a facelift. They’ll be going bi-monthly, rather than quarterly, and the broader focus in coverage can be only a good thing.

One of the handiest things of the Bulletin (in theory, in reality it comes too late) is Cynthia Ward’s Market Reports. If you scroll down the Bulletin’s website front page, you’ll see them. In that horrid pdf format, true, but click on it and take a look. It contains information on what’s happening in the markets world — new markets, new competitions, updated contact information, markets that are dead or closed.

Useful; and in future it will be posted to the website on a regular basis so I’d recommend writers mark it as a regular stop.

On a more amusing note:

back when I was first approached about taking the Nebsite gig and talking to Michael Capobianco to make sure we had the same goals in mind, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do, things I thought were worth attempting.

I had one idea in particular that I thought could be problematic to pass. But I did need the consent of the Board and the co-operation of a couple of relevant SFWA personnel. So last week I finally sat down and wrote up an entire novella, stating my argument. I even had backup arguments prepared, just in cases*.

well, there was no opposition to the idea, actually a couple of good suggestions as to how we should do it.

the amusing part? well, scrolling through the forums end of the week, I caught some of the info on the revamped Bulletin and…the same idea. A little different in execution but exactly the same: taking the NAR public, in modified form.

(no number of votes, no names of who recommended it, only title, author and relevant link).

Man, if I’d known others were thinking along similar lines, it would have spared me like an hour of preparing the Book of Argument…

I’m looking for experts (or at least people familiar with) folklore and mythology of different nations and cultures:

Australian; New Zealand Maori; Aztec; Inca; Mayan; Olmec; Russian; Hindu; Chinese; Japanese; Korean; Sumerian; Hittite; Native American, etc.

Anything outside the too familiar Roman, Greek, Egyptian or Scandinavian.

If you know someone – or are that someone – please ask them to contact me or let me know so I can get in touch.

Thanks.

*as seen on Love Actually.

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2008/07/newbies-guide-to-publishing-book.html

JA Konrath’s blog, A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing, is one of the most informative, entertaining and simply must read blogs for all new writers. He has now collected the entire blog into a free, downloadable book from his website, complete with entries separated into categories.

I’m flashing this weekend. Who else?