Aislinn O'Shea

I'm losing steam so badly... I'm stuck at 18,762. I only wrote about 300 words yesterday, and haven't written anything yet today. It's getting very hard to find time to write, working 8 hours a day, being responsible for dinner after work, and working to completely reorganize the basement. My future mother-in-law is hiring movers to get the rest of her stuff out of our basement, where we were temporarily storing it... but it's waaaayyyy in the back of the basement, behind all the boxes of our crap. All my spare time at home the past couple of days has been spent moving boxes and re-packaging stuff in a mad dash to have her stuff accessible by tomorrow.

I'm writing this on my lunch break at work, which I guess I should have spent writing on my novel instead. :|

I sense a marathon writing session in my future, but I don't know when... Sunday I will be out of town all day at an event I absolutely can't skip. I'm guessing I'll probably be very cranky at work Monday or Tuesday after some caffeine abuse and late-night writing sessions.

I skipped out yseterday...so I'm not ahead anymore. I'm gonna hope to make moreup tomorrow, but...we'll see!

Notes augmented

We've enhanced and de-bugged Notes. If you haven't tried it yet, now's the time! You can create a private note when you ban multiple users. You can also delete multiple notes at once. Lastly, paid users have the option to add a note (visible only to you) whenever you add or remove a friend (guaranteed to avoid embarrassing social mishaps). If you don't currently have a paid account, you can upgrade now! It only takes a few minutes and costs less than a bad shopping mall haircut (plus, it's way more fashionable)!

Product tweaks and bug kill

1. In another effort to zap spam, comments containing links from domains LiveJournal deems untrustworthy are now automatically screened
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3. The issue causing random comments to vanish has been fixed!
4. If you visit a LiveJournal page and get prompted to log in, you'll be returned to the same page after you sign in (Thanks, Dreamwidth)!
5. If you don't edit the timestamp for an entry at all, the entry timestamp will indicate the time the entry was posted instead of the time the Update Journal page was loaded
6. Comments with paddings/backgrounds render correctly within the comment box (and will no longer wrap outside the box and break frames/margins)

New FCK fixes rich text editor!

1. We've updated our RTE (Rich Text Editor) to FCKeditor version 2.6.5
2. When switching from the RTE to HTML editor, links for syndicated feeds are no longer broken
3. RTE now functions properly in Safari 4.0
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5. The insert image link now works correctly in all browsers

LiveJournal Cares

We’re pleased to introduce you to lj_cares, a new LiveJournal community dedicated to raising awareness and funds for U.S. charitable organizations that improve the health and well-being of people around the world. Each month, we’ll spotlight a nonprofit that is making a significant global impact through medical research, public outreach, and/or humanitarian social programs. Charities will be selected in accordance with the U.S. calendar of national health observances based on a high rating (of over 60%) on Charity Navigator and global scope of impact.

In this, our inaugural month of November, we will celebrate national adoption month by offering a charitable virtual gift (priced at $2.99) to support Love Without Boundaries, an organization that saves the lives of orphans with life-threatening diseases and places them in loving homes around the world. LiveJournal will donate 100% of the proceeds from the sale of charitable vgifts (we'll cover the cost of credit card transaction fees). To learn more about Love Without Boundaries, please visit lj_cares and read about how they helped save Baby Kang and the Rainbow Twins from fatal illnesses, who are now thriving in nurturing families. You can purchase your Love Without Boundaries gifts in the Virtual Gift shop.

Papered in postcards

A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in postcards to surround us with LiveJournal community. Thanks for coming through! We've received postcards all the way from Germany, Finland, and Canada and from all over the US, including Texas, Florida, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Indiana, Hawaii, and Oklahoma just to name just a handful. We're thrilled with our improved decor.

Please keep the love coming for one more week by writing to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be drawing the names of ten random contributors next Thursday to win paid account credits!

Photos of the week

We have more dazzling images posted by talented LiveJournal photographers from around the world. We're hoping to span the entire globe, so please continue posting and tagging. Of course, you can also sit back and enjoy the view at lj_photophile.

You can see a sample of this week's gorgeous photos and check out spotlight communities and awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

We thank you, once again, for joining us. See you next week!

EDIT@08:16 UTC/GMT. Wow. That was ugly. I expected it to go for 30 minutes and have maybe 1 minute of broken connectivity. Instead it lasted over 4 hours and we had 10 minutes of downtime directly related to the load balancer upgrades and then another 5-10 minutes of downtime when our primary Pingback database server crashed and the secondary couldn't take over; which could have been indirectly caused by the network upgrade missing a self-VIP.

Anyways, we're up, we're working, the load balancers are barely breaking a sweat right now and I need some food and a shot of whiskey. I don't even *like* whiskey!!

Thanks mhwest and dnewhall for helping out!

---

On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.

Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.

We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!

As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.

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Wish I could take credit for this, but I got the link through the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books blog.

In honor of Veteran's Day, they spotlighted this website dedicated to women who served in the military, then got into writing!

http://www.romvets.com/

Please do check out the "Before and After" link at the top of the page to read about fascinating women who not only served their country but worked on the pen being mightier than the sword angle!

It's focus is on romance writers, so left out is one of my favs, Elizabeth Moon, who served as a Marine in Vietnam in the 60s. For some great military s/f reading, check out her books!

http://www.elizabethmoon.com/

Still can't keep up the 2k a day habit so far. Too many distractions (too much chatting too), but I got my 1700 the last few days.

phew.

Bopping around the interwebs as I am wont to do, I came to a post wherein Someone Who Should Know Better was railing about cover art. Not their own--another author's. I'm not going to link it here because frankly I don't want to give this person the attention. Suffice to say it was rude and smug and indicative of a vast lack of knowledge about how the publishing industry works as a whole.

As someone who's complained about cover art in my genre in general terms many times, and would die happy if she never saw another tramp stamp on a book jacket, I'm still bothered. Attacking specific authors over their cover art, even if you don't name names, is not on.

Here's why:

WE DON'T PICK THE COVER ART.

That sounds ludicrously simple, and I can't believe so many people in the industry don't get it. But there it is.

In slightly more detail, it usually goes like this:

I (Jane Midlist) get a call from Edna Editor. She asks me for my thoughts on cover design and what elements I might like to incorporate. I tell her. She then passes the suggestions on to Adam Artdirector who does one of two things:

A) incorporates some but not all of Jane Midlist's suggestions depending on his own vision, the artist/photographer he hires or the stock photos available, and what Marketing has to say.

B) ignores Jane Midlist as if she were a crazy street preacher asking him to contribute his bodily fluids to the Church of Cardboard Frigidaire Box.

If you're Betty Bestseller, than yeah, you get a say over your cover and you probably even get a photoshoot or original art just for you.

But that's not how it works in the vast majority of the industry.

Why? Because Marketing has the final say. And Marketing is a vast and immovable force that cannot be understood, reasoned with or bribed. It simply Is.

And sometimes, Marketing decrees you will have a shitty cover that has nothing to do with your book.

This isn't the author's fault.

Mocking her on your blog for a cover she likely didn't even see until ARCs were already printed is a shitty, low-class thing to do and reveals a startling amount of rudeness inherent in your character.

Anyone encouraging any group of readers to gang up on an author and tell her how much you hate her cover is really not an awesome thing to do.

But readers! you say. Readers can judge anyone! Sure, readers judge on covers. But think about it--you're in a bookstore, intending to buy a book for the purposes of reading it. You're going to at least pick it up and read the back matter. Probably skim the pages. (If you don't, I call bullshit. I have never bought a book without skimming the back cover copy. At the very least. People who read, as a whole, do the same thing.)

Marketing's job is to figure out what cover design is eye-catching, what designs have sold well in the genre before and what variations on a theme might sell well again. A cover's job is to get you to pick up the book and read the back and skim page 123.

If you are Jane Midlist, and you got a cover that resembled your vision, you are lucky. Lucky. (I am lucky. I have beautiful covers. I shout my gratitude at every opportunity. I don't so much point and laugh at those less fortunate.)

The other reason Adam Artdirector and Marketing exist is a slightly less happy-fuzzy reason: A lot of the time, authors have no taste. We're not graphic designers. We make our living with word-pictures for a reason. Marketing exists to make sure the author doesn't bully her way into a cover full of sparkling turquoise unicorns on a book about Jack the Ripper.

Covers are largely a crapshoot. The next time you feel the urge to snark on a specific cover versus some of the (oh so tired) tropes of the genre, bite your tongue.

I'm serious.

It's not our fault. We're just as upset as you are.

We could all stand to be a little kinder and gentler to each other on this issue. Lately, it's getting out of hand.

We are all in this crazy business together.

Let's try to act that way.

Originally published at Caitlin Kittredge.

15194 / 50000 words. 30% done!

I was really behind this weekend... then I introduced my main male lead, and the words started flowing. Woohoo!

Bereft of actual content, I'm answering some reader questions and general inquiries.

How long did it take you to write this particular novel and how long between novels does it usually take to write a new one? How many pages/hours do you write a day?

They were referring to Street Magic. I'd say it took me about five months to write, if you crunched all of the intermittent work on it together. Three months for an initial (crappy) draft, a month to flesh it out, a month of revisions...it added up.

I used to write crazy amounts a day. I kept up 3-5,000 words a day for a good three years, before I burnt my brain out like a piece of bacon in a bug zapper. Now I write 1,o00 words a day or a little more on a couple of projects per day, which is much better for my sanity and also the quality of my books. Everybody wins!

1. Do you have a particular routine when it comes to writing novels? (I know this is a boring question, but it fascinates me how different writers work).

2. You said you liked tea. What is your favorite sort of tea?

3. Do you have a particular favorite band? I got the impression you were a Led (Zeppelin) head by reading parts of your website, but I still have to ask.

1. I sit down, open a document, figure out what happens next, and write it.

2. I like green tea most, black tea next and white tea not much at all. Give me some green tea with jasmine and I will be content for as long as it takes me to drink. Then I'll demand more, so you better have it.

3. My love of Zeppelin comes largely from my mom, who alternated between playing Led Zeppelin II and Rubber Soul on our huge record/tape combo player quite a bit when I was a kid (and Dylan, and Hendrix, and CCR...). Funnily enough, I'm not much of a Beatles fan.

(Paraphrased from a bunch of reader mail) Is Demon Bound the next Nocturne City novel? There's an excerpt of it in the back of Witch Craft. This is confusing.

I know it is, and I apologize. Demon Bound is the second Black London novel. The final Nocturne City novel, Daemon's Mark, will be released in June of 2010. Demon Bound drops December 1!

(Paraphrased from a bunch of Twitter and Facebook questions) Do you have a YA novel coming out? I desire specifics!

Yes, The Witch's Alphabet is my first YA novel. It's a Lovecraftian steampunk tale and the first of three, which comprise the Iron Codex. It's published by Delacorte/Random House and it'll be out sometime in 2010. It's tied for favorite thing I've ever written, so I suggest if you like airships, Cthulhu, spunky heroines or awesomeness you check it out.

(Paraphrased from a question I get roughly once a day with varying degrees of hostility) WHY ISN'T [X NOVEL] ON KINDLE? GOSH!

Here's the deal: I have absolutely no control over when and how my publishers decide to distribute an e-book version of any of my novels. The Kindle conversion system is crazily backed up and slow, and I do not have a magical stick I can whomp anyone with to change that fact. Yelling at me about it and telling me I should get with the times before I cost myself ALL OF MY SALES is rude, and more to the point, won't get you your e-book edition any faster.

Patience is a friggin' virtue, people.

That being said, you are welcome to politely write to St. Martin's Press, Bantam-Spectra or Delacorte and express the unending joy you would feel should they release [X Novel] in an e-book edition.

---

Oh, I did do something else yesterday! Cherie and I went out to Snoqualmie to poke around the train yard and get her some new author photos.

Comparing these to the shots I took of her earlier this year, I'm pleased to see that I kind of sort of look like I know what I'm doing.

This is my favorite:



You can see the full set on Cherie's Flickr stream here.

---

I've been crazed the past couple of weeks trying to get my home loan arranged and deal with Life, but I did read something:

26. Justine Larbalestier, Liar

I would call this a brilliantly written book that was about 20,000 words too long. I really enjoyed spending time with Micah and the twisted, tail-eating narrative was a thing of beauty, but I ended each section vaguely unsatisfied at how little had actually happened. Which may just be my own writer showing through versus my compassionate Reader. I still highly recommend this for YA fans. It's really a stellar example of what the format can do, pacing issues aside.

And that's the news.

Originally published at Caitlin Kittredge.

Happy November, oh internet of my heart. I have many exciting things to tell you.

The first and most important is a very happy thing. On Friday I went onto twitter, where I am www.twitter.com/sarahreesbrenna, as an oppressive twitter system denies me my last, delicious 'n.' And I saw people were congratulating me.

Since I had not even managed to get dressed for the day and was indeed cocooned in a fuzzy blanket, this struck me as odd.

When someone told me that The Demon's Lexicon had been nominated for a Carnegie award, I became hopelessly entangled in my blanket and almost fell down.

The Carnegie Medal is the British equivalent of the Newbery and the National Book Award. Richard Adams won it for Watership Down. Margaret Mahy, being a writing goddess, has won it twice. It is indeed an honour to be nominated, especially in the company of such people as Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Laurie Halse Anderson, and R.J. Anderson for her awesome book Knife.

When you have a book out, you spend a lot of time trying to find out what people think. A bad internet review can make you lie down in the floor cuddling a cup of hot chocolate and murmuring 'You are my only friend, Mr Cuplington.' (All right, maybe that's just me.) So something like this just transformed my day, and made me wander around in a daze of joy all weekend.

My book. Nominated for a Carnegie. Mr Cuplington and I are so happy.

In other news, Cassandra Clare's lovely fansite Mundie Moms have been so very kind as to make Demon's Lexicon their Book of the Month. There's a forum up where people are already discussing it, and on November the 12th, 9 PM EST, there will be an online chat.

Here is the link to the chat now - hope to see some of you at the chat in an hour and a half!

And a present for you all: here is the first chapter of the second book, The Demon's Covenant, which will also be up on the website very soon. I hope you enjoy!

( The Demon's Covenant, Chapter One )

sixwordstories
Whether you're in the mood for a creative challenge or you're short on time or attention span, this semi-addictive community is perfect for those who find flash fiction way long. Once you get the hang of it, you won't be able to stop. The prince turned into a frog. The girl ran home to mother. Tough to write. Easy to read. It's a double threesome of fun.

dailyfoodie
Delicious, ambitious, and occasionally nutritious dishes make for an eclectic, all-you-can-eat feast. Whether you're searching for recipes for your next dinner party or you're jonesing for a late-night brownie fix, your cravings are sure to be well sated. A warm and inclusive community that welcomes all orientations, from carnivores to vegans, from gourmands to junk-food junkies. Guaranteed bias-free, food-positive, and pan-epicurian.

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So this is what happens when I don't pay attention. 

Blackstone Audio releases the second Vampire Files audiobook, LIFEBLOOD!

Check out the nifty/cool cover!



Listen to samples on the page!


There is a chunk of irony here.  I found out about this one via a pirate download site.

Yup. Before I have even gotten my author's copy from Blackstone, some pin-headed thieving MORON uploaded the book so he could either spread a computer virus or get points so he can download more porn into his useless, how-dare-you-breathe-my-air existence.

He sure wasn't doing me any favors.  Whoever you are, I hate you. Seriously, I do. You stink and your mommy dresses you strangely.



But back to the audio release....!

This is a cool thing to have TWO books in the series in audio.  That makes a total of four and a half for me.

I, Strahd, was recorded in the 90s by the legendary Roddy McDowell, and Keeper of the King by my most excellent co-writer Nigel Bennett. They're both so worth a listen!

If I'm dreaming NO ONE pinch me, I don't wanna wake up.

The "and a half?"  That would be a single cassette tape called The Living Dead, where my story You'll Catch Your Death was paired up with Robert Bloch's title story. Wowsers!

Copies are available for cheap so check around if you'd like to round out your Elrod audio collection.

Day 5:


Day 6:


Huh... this story is getting away from where I thought it would go. I think that's a good thing. I HOPE that's a good thing! *grins*

a little bit more before work this morning ! (my wrists are killing me...but it helps to have no distractions at all)

Losing steam here...

Getting there... I am just getting to the juicy part, though, so hopefully that will up my speed!

The empire strikes back

In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.

RSS feeds again

If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.

Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!

c_s_i

If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.

Enveloped in postcards

Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.

Photos of the week

If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
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10020 / 50000 words. 20% done!

tired. This stuff is so tiring. I didn't make my count last night, I nearly fell asleep on the keyboard but that's due to hanging out and laughing a lot. Was lucky I could type before work today, then some after...made it up, just barely.

and I type at work all day! No wonder I never finished when I was in school!