Writing News:
I was too excited to wait for the Writing Stuff at the bottom, so here it is: Fantasist Enterprises is moving full-steam ahead on its production of Fantastical Visions Anthology IV. The cover art is done, and can be seen HERE on Stephanie Pui-Mun Law’s website, as can the illustrations for my story “Imaginix” [ 1, 2] which will appear in the anthology.
Check out the line-up and the blurb on the new FV IV website.
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Lots of things going on here at the moment! My sister is up visiting from SoCal for her spring break, so we’re trying to give her a good time while she’s here, despite the clouds and the cold temperature. ^_^ Friday, when she flew in, we took her out to eat at India House on Yamhill and 11th (I think it’s 11th). It’s a great little place, and the food is delicious. Andy and I found it by luck for his birthday this past September, and we frequent it when we can afford it.
Then Saturday, we all went over to Kaku’s parents’ house to make pizza and watch a movie. It worked out really well. Besides the always good company, I managed to mix up the dough properly and not terribly over-salt the sauce by accident (it was a close call though), and Andy did a fabulous job sliding the pizza off the cutting board and onto the pizza stone. This is particularly notable, since last time I didn’t put enough cornmeal under it, so when Andy tried to slide it onto the stone, it flopped over on itself and went cheese-side-down. Boofed. But it worked out well! We all watched In Bruges which was very good, though surprisingly more sad than I’d expected. For some reason, the ads for it made it look really hilarious, and while it did have witty, funny moments, in the end, I think you just feel bad for most of the characters. Still an enjoyable watch, though!
Yesterday, we pulled our Pig N’ Pancake run and then went to Winco to get our grocery shopping done (which was much needed). I also started working on a portrait for Em, since she wanted something to hang in her bedroom next year at school. We took a ton of stock photos to get the look and feel that she wanted, and I got a large portion of the base-work painted. Definitely need to work on getting precise likenesses, but it does actually look like her so far, so I’m happy. ^_^ Painting in only black and white is pretty challenging; it really emphasizes proper tone. It’s been good practice so far.
Speaking of paintings, I also started (last Wednesday or so) my first geometrical painting, with razor-sharp lines. I *love* the look of it right now–there’s just something about the softly blended colors and those sharp edges that I just find really aesthetically pleasing. This picture (tentatively called the verbose “Walking through the Forest in Late Autumn”) was inspired by my trip to the Portland Art Museum. When I track down the particular artist whose painting deliberately inspired this more geometric style, I’ll let you know. ^_^
Writing Stuff (2):
For those of you still patient enough to follow “The Thief Dilemma”, I’m 1400 words into Chapter 17. Just FYI. It is coming.
Also did some reworking on the plotting for “Sidrie’s Last Battle”–the climax is much better now.
I need to sub out “Mimicry” again… Hmm… Maybe this week, maybe next week. It needs to be done, but I’ve got a lot of social distractions this week while Em’s here. I’ll probably just try to have fun with her and Andy and worry about submitting next week when things quiet down.
Also: I love Octavia Butler. I started reading Wild Seed a few days ago, and I can’t put it down. She. Is. Brilliant. <3 I read Dawn for the first time a few years ago, and it’s probably one of my favorite SF novels to date. She proved to me that aliens in SF could be truly alien, truly unique, and not just human re-hashes in bad makeup. I finally got a book with all three of the Dawn trilogy. Planning to read that after Wild Seed. If I could be even a quarter as good a writer as she is/was, I’d be thrilled to my toes.
Maggie Slater 