SF Signal had a giveaway of this new anthology. I entered. I won.

The list of authors is pretty diverse. I'm looking forward to reading it!

Because then I could go see the Museum of the History of Science's exhibit on steampunk. It's on until February 21. Go if you can.

For those of us who can't, at least they have videos.

1. Benedict IX was pope three times.

2. Bald eagles in the United States (even in zoos) belong to the federal government.

3. Merriam-Webster dictionary entries are chronological (oldest first), not order of use. (I should've known this one!)

4. Word's Go To function will work with relative numbers (-3, +4) to change location in a document. (It actually says that on the dialog box that pops up, but I've never used it.) This can be really useful if you want to skip forward 3 chapters, and you use a heading style to define chapters, for example.

5. I was born halfway between the Beaver Moon and the Cold Moon (also known as the Long Night Moon).

CG awake at midnight. Did manage to get her to sleep at 1, which is an improvement. Up at 7 to get her off to daycare -- got her zipped into her jacket, and she threw up at me, lovely projectile stuff, but not too much, fortunately. Easy to clean up. We went back to bed for a few hours, and she awoke feeling much better and rather put out that I made her eat Jell-O instead of the cereal her brother was getting.

She amused herself later by dumping out bookcases in my office.

So, being as she was better, we kept the double appointment for the kids' dental. T-Bug has 3 cavities, plus the dentist wants to extract 2 of the teeth to let the back ones come into position better. And the dentist says that CG is a little tongue-tied -- her frenulum linguae is on the short side, which may affect her speech development. So if it seems to be an issue, we may have to see about that.

Oh, and I got a 1-day rejection from Neil Clarke on "Free of Fire." Because, you know, it wasn't Monday enough.

Meh. I think I'm going to get the boy to bed, watch Chuck with my husband, and go get some sleep.

Last September, I joined the Garden State Horror Writers, a multi-genre writing group. temporus had been encouraging me to go to the meetings for ages, and I finally made it to one where Ellen Datlow was talking about the current state of horror. I haven't made it to a meeting since.

Best of intentions. I was planning to go this Saturday -- Dina Leacock is talking about short story writing. Terrific!

Except I forgot my mother-in-law is visiting the state this weekend, and Saturday's the best day for us to drive over to Valley Forge to see her. I *could* go to the meeting myself and let the rest of the family go, but my husband's car really needs to go into the shop, so mine's needed for the drive.

All right, then. Next month for sure. John Joseph Adams -- how could I miss the chance to meet the man who has rejected so many of my stories so quickly? (One rejected in 7-1/2 hours this week!)

However, there's a bit of a scheduling conflict: Boskone runs February 12-14 this year. Yes, I already paid my registration fee.

Here's hoping March works out. . . .

to underpope. Hope it was terrific!

Taken from Val. maripat posted her responses on her Blogger blog. If you want to play along, leave a link in the comments so I can see your answers.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper. Gift bags are for last-minute birthday presents. *grin*

2. Real tree or Artificial? REAL. My in-laws have an artificial one, though they usually do both. I love the smell of a real tree, though.

3. When do you put up the tree? Later than hoped for every year. It tends to depend on husband's work schedule (grading, final exams, etc.).

4. When do you take the tree down? Before it catches on fire. Generally, about a day before they stop accepting trees at the city compost/mulch division.

5. Do you like eggnog? Mmmmmmmm. Homemade is best, but I'll drink the stuff that comes from the store if that's all there is.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? My stuffed purple monkey, Sweetie. Second favorite was the book, Robertson, Ugly, & Nohow -- maybe the first real book that was all mine. Both were gifts from my favorite great-aunt. Oh, and there was my first real bike -- a mauve girl's bike with coaster brakes and a banana seat; I finally learned to ride it without training wheels because my younger brother was riding his bike without.

7. Hardest person to buy for? I dunno. CG -- who is too old for most baby toys but can't use so many other things because they "contain small parts; not intended for children under 3." Very frustrating.

8. Easiest person to buy for? Anyone I happen to see the perfect gift for. Judging by the number of things I've found stashed around for T-Bug in the past 24 hours since I started wrapping, I'm going to have to say him.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? A couple of stripped-down versions (just the Holy Family). EDIT: And evidently a complete set that I had forgotten about but T-Bug found this morning. Go figure.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail. Not necessarily in a timely fashion, though I'm hoping to get them off this year, anyway.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Can't think of anything particularly horrific.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? White Christmas

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Whenever I see something that grabs my attention.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Can't recall such an incident.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Filled Christmas candies. Oatmeal fudge bars. Kourabiedes. Pretty much anything that has more fat or sugar (or both) than I should be consuming.

16. Lights on the tree? The more, the merrier! Oh, colors? White. Multi-colored. Solid, blinking, or racing. They just have to be shiny.

17. Favorite Christmas song? "Silent Night" or "Joy to the World." I can never quite decide.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? We have traveled before, but with the short break T-Bug gets from school, it's not worth the hassle.

19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? Well, I could, but they'd probably object because they have names already. All of which I know . . . Dasher and Dancer, Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid, Donder* and Blitzen. And that red-nosed pipsqueak. ;-)

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? You know, if you put an angel on top, that branch is sticking straight up her skirt. Think about that. We either do a star or no topper.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? One on Christmas Eve, the rest in the morning. As the kids get older, I imagine there will be a push for doing them all after Midnight Mass. I remember when we convinced my mom that that was the way to go.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? People who are so stressed at not shopping that they forget how to drive, how to park, and how to be courteous to other people on the road.

23. Favorite ornament, theme, or color? I have a darling little Irish angel my mom gave me years ago.

24. Favorite for Christmas Dinner? We always do ham and potatoes (baked or mashed), creamed spinach, maybe some rolls. It's simple, it's filling, it's good.

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? More time in the day? Focus? Patience? An e-mail saying I've made a sale to a pro market?

*Yes, Donder, not Donner. Donder and Blitzen are Thunder and Lightning. Donner is a lake in the Sierras (and the pass that goes alongside it), named for the party trapped there by a snowstorm.

I've seen a few things lately denigrating horses-and-castles fantasy, anything set in medieval or pseudo-Dark Ages. Of course, my new idea, Sundered Sword, needs a historical milieu.

The idea started with the line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. "[S]trange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government." Which got me thinking about Excalibur and wondering what would happen if two different people both got swords -- or part of the same sword.

I can't write about such a thing in a modern world or even post-Enlightenment. People don't believe in divine right to rule and haven't for centuries. That pretty much limits the sort of fantastical world I can create.

It won't be a strictly medieval world. I've been reading a lovely biography of a woman in early seventeenth-century Italy, and I'll be borrowing Renaissance and Baroque elements, probably including guns and cannon. But the absolutely critical point is at heart, people must believe in the right of kings (or queens) to rule, even if it has been generations since one has.

And that's my rationale for adding yet another horses-and-swords fantasy to the world.

(cross-posted to Random Walks toward Publishing)

When I was in graduate school, one of the professors on my thesis advisory committee told me he didn't think I was committed enough to graduate school and the work I was doing. At the time, I was flummoxed. I was there; I put in all-nighters at least once a week it seemed, and I was a go-to person for orienting people to the lab & procedures. Also, for having references handy or knowing where to find who had done something. How dare he say that I wasn't committed?

He held up one of his own students (one of my classmates) as an example of what a graduate student should be. "He's always thinking about new experiments, new things to try. When he's out running, he's thinking about the latest results. When he's eating, he comes up with new variables." And so on. All this managed to do was give me a resentment of a very nice guy who was always very helpful -- and who was *almost* as good a cook as I was. (He made very good chocolate soufflés, but he almost got an egg in his face when I was helping him at a party and he seemed surprised that I knew to crack eggs I was going to separate in a small dish in case the yolk broke. Okay, not really. I was just tempted to walk out of the kitchen. Let him crack his own eggs if he doesn't think I'm competent. Then we got into a discussion on the varied actions of copper bowls and cream of tartar for incorporation of air into the egg whites, and all was forgiven.)

I'm writing about this now because I finally get what the professor was saying.

Oh, I figured out long ago that I wasn't meant for a career in science, and the thought of running a lab and teaching and applying for grants is the stuff of nightmares. But I figured out he wasn't talking about commitment in terms of time and energy. He was talking about passion.

Like the way I say, "Oh, it's Monday -- there's a new Writing Excuses podcast to download and listen to!" Or the way I tear the wrapper off the new Locus, even if I only have time at the moment to look at the "People & Publishing." It's the way I hunt out new agent, editor, and author blogs to get different views on the industry -- and follow them on Twitter as well because I want to know what's going on. It's the way I keep trying to figure out how to get more time in my day so I can commit more of my ideas to screen, even though there are so many I will have to abandon because there is no time to do them all. It's in the way I watch TV and see how plot lines are being developed and themes crossed and events foreshadowed and think about what techniques I might want to use in my own work. It's being really happy with my plan for a book I've barely started -- and getting a brainstorm for a parallel plot that intensifies everything. It's that my entire life is saturated with writing and becoming better at this and writing and getting published . . . and writing.

It all comes back to the writing.

I have found my passion, and it's more than a commitment. On the other hand, getting a guy to say "commitment" was pretty impressive, without expecting a scientist to talk about "passion," too. ;-)

I took a look at my stated goals for the year, and although I've made progress on them, I'm certainly not going to get all of them met before this December 31.

Edit two novels and get at least one out to agents. I edited one, sent it out for crits, read the crits, and prepared a new edit plan for it. For the other, I've read through it and prepped an edit plan/outline. Nothing has made it as far as an agent.

Submit one novella and one novelette. Novella done, submiited, results posted. Novelette was supposed to go to Nocturne Bites; I've decided to shelve that project indefinitely (i.e., trunk it), even though I am almost finished with the edits.

Outline NaNo 2007. Done as part of above editing plans.

And a new novel for NaNoWriMo? I certainly participated. I even won. What I did not do was write a complete novel, and Jim Bob is not going to be finished this month, either.

So the final score for 2009 goals? Actually, pretty good. I didn't get as much done as I wanted on novels, either writing or editing, as I wanted, but I did make progress.

What does this mean for 2010? I'll roll over the editing and writing, of course, as a minimum. However, I should get more done in the coming year. My youngest is in daycare now, which will give me more time. Also, we're not taking as long a family vacation -- thus, I'm expecting to get far more done and will be posting 2010 goals that reflect this.