it's like the eye of a duck

Glargh.

Think I may finally be getting well after several days of blowing my nose like a foghorn. I hope the upward trend continues as I've got busy plans for the weekend, but even if I'm still sniffly I plan to have fun and learn lots.

The cold has blocked my writing and I've been sitting 2 days looking at the same two storylines and unable to cough up anything resembling a good narrative. Dialog is a struggle for me and I just can't get the words to flow like I want them to. Perhaps I'm aiming too high :/

Sickness hasn't interfered with my coding, at least. With the quiet at work I was able to hammer out 2 good hours of debugging and problem solving today all by my lonesome :)

Otherwise, been sneaking around online to look at shiny things; most recently PVC chain mail and the new site for the Tudor Tailor, whose book is coming out in the spring. I saw this group do their "Deconstructing Elizabeth I" demo in Philly in the spring and can say confidently that they know their stuff - I plan to get one of the early copies.

Speaking of Philly - the reason I never posted pictures from the symposium or anything else is because every graphics package I own brings my computer to its' virtual knees; there's not enough memory to open photos, let alone edit them! D. is right and it's time I faced facts: I need a new computer this year. It doesn't even have to be top of the line, just newer than this one!

Other everyday revelations: 20 lunges = one side of a turkey burger cooking to doneness. And I need more bookshelf space the way other people need water :P

'Nuff for now. Time to get in a few crunches or something before my body atrophies from lack of use :P

( more injunctions to the powers that be, because I want something better than a moldy sandwich :P From indyansel )

Possibly not news to most, but news to me: these I found as I was slinking around the internet looking for something to do repetitive work to:

Attn. jlsjlsjls: The Dragon Page's "Cover to Cover" podcast has an interview with Kage Baker in the archives if you're willing to pony up the $3 for the CD.

Attn. hadesgirl and semmie17: I Should Be Writing, "A podcast by a wanna-be writer for wanna-be writers." (See also: Brutal Women).

Ended up listening to Slacker Astronomy and Skepticality. Ok, so neither are book or writing related, but they're still cool.

She doesn't post often, but posts well: just found another thought provoking article over at Brutal Women about the disappointment when fictional female-dominated societies turn out not to be, so much. I've not read the book in question, but she makes some interesting points - the society described reads as "female-dominant" only by virtue of there being more women than men, and the men are given great freedom to use and abuse due to their "rare" status:

Great! A female-dominated society, and girl babies are still greeted as gutter trash. One royal husband also abuses his wives and brutally rapes one of them. And guess what? Because he's a guy, he goes unpunished.

How does this fulfill the "things can be really different?" school of spec. fic.?

Disclaimer: I'm not a professional writer or gender studies student. However, I dabble in both and got to thinking - how would one create a fictional women-dominated society? I wrote a storyline once that involved a female-dominated society of evolved ants, but it wasn't that challenging - ant colonies ARE mostly female; in most species males only live long enough to mate. How to write it with people? Could women really be dominant without being a numeric majority? What would be different, and what would stay the same?

Maybe I've just not read a really good story on this theme - I am new to reading sci fi. Readers, writers - any suggestions beyond what's in the Brutal Women comments?

Ran across this at Metafilter yesterday - Anne Rice slams her critics, while suggesting she's too good for an editor (scroll down to "Blood Canticle", her latest).

Uhm, puhleese! Some further thoughts:

( thoughtful ranting. No, really! )

For my own part, I'm not going out of my way to get her latest books; I started "Armand" and wasn't interested/fast enough to finish it in the one week the library gave me (an indication that enough people DO like her current writing enough for her to be on the 7-day/no renewals stack). I'll always love the first three, and be grateful that it opened my mind to vampire fiction by other authors.

And I'm sure not going to take her ventings personally - it's not like I know this person.

But yes, she should get an editor - can't hurt and if it can take her back to the quality of writing shown in "Lestat", it will emphatically help!