Month: August 2008

Rooms with view

The view from my hotel window. Nice, no? You can’t really see it, but in the lower left of the photo, there’s a rooftop with a garden.

While waiting for that room with a view, we wandered over to the Metreon, which is right next door to the Marriott. This is Andrew in the arcade area of the Metreon. I think I’ve mentioned is claw machine affection, not to mention his mad claw machine skillz (he once won a Game-Boy). The arcade at the Metreon devotes one huge room to claw machines. Just how big? 

Here’s one half of the room. There was more. A lot more. 

Andrew’s comment: “Now I know what heaven looks like.”

In other views, Lee McKenzie posted a picture of the Noodlers at the Golden Network reception. I’m the geeky one (on the right) in front holding my “boot out” certificate (kind of like I’m not quite sure what to do with it). I’m totally rocking that farmer’s tan too.

The Geek Girl’s Guide to Fonts


You Are Andale Mono


You are a geek, pure and simple.You spend a lot of time online.

In fact, you probably love the internet more than anyone you know.

You are picky about design, mostly for readability’s sake.

You are the type most likely to be irritated by a bad font.

 

This is so appropriate for a technical writer. Never witnessed a font war? Good times.

In other Geek Girl news, the manuscript is official and accepted and off to copy editing. I think Darcy is officially taking a nap. I know she deserves one. I’m officially going to watch some synchronized swimming.

Tea for two

In case anyone was wondering, I went with the English tea service at the Samovar Tea Lounge. It came with a three tiered serving platter with a shiitake mushroom quiche, fresh fruit, and a scone with preserves and clotted cream. This last is no doubt one of the worst things you can eat. Bad never tasted so good.

I was also served a side order of sunburn. Being clever, I made this worse by walking all the way down Market Street and then along the Wharf.

In what is absolutely perfect timing, our editor (!!!) sent us (that would be me and Darcy) a few minor edits on the Geek Girl’s Guide revision we turned in a few weeks back. A few as in we can deal with this in email few. So nice. And so far, doable. After this, the manuscript is official and goes to copy edits.

What’s funny is while–yes–we’ve cut some things, the story grew again, by the tune of 5,000 words! More, we want more seems to be the order of the day. When it comes to conventional wisdom about publishing and Geek Girl’s Guide, nothing is conventional.

What a difference a word makes

So it’s entirely possible I shouldn’t blog, since I saw the headline about Russia attacking Georgia and misread it as Russia attacking Germany. Now there’s a world event I didn’t see coming. I had a full-fledged 80s flashback to when I used to brief the intelligence portion of the V Corps general defense plan along with everyone’s favorite two words: Fulda Gap.

Anyway, like I said: I’m probably too tired to blog. (And possibly Fulda Gap are just two of my favorite words.)

I’m sure everyone is expecting all sorts of insights from my time at the conference. Or not. There were a lot of good workshops and Bill Stephens Productions will be offering some (or maybe all of the recorded sessions, although not all were recorded) for individual download on the web. The RWA National site has a PDF with all the recorded sessions, so you can browse and get your iPod ready.

Where was I? Oh, yes, insights. Did you ever know something only to have someone else put it into words for you?

During Dr. Eric Maisel’s session on Creativity for Life, he talked about “loving” the work (meaning writing). Someone later on asked about the love part–what do you do when you’re in full-on hate mode with your current project.

Dr. Maisel clarified what he meant. It isn’t discipline that brings us to the page when we hate everything we’ve written since 1997. It’s devotion.

One little word switch and I had a light bulb moment. Of course. For years, people have commented on my discipline with writing. I’ve always hemmed and hawed and tried well, no it’s not really discipline … but I didn’t have a word for what it was.

Or to put it in middle school terms: I always like writing, even when I don’t like like writing.

Session break

So, I’m sitting in the bar of the Marriott, taking a session break. No, they’re not serving yet, so I’m not actually drinking anything, not even something hot and overpriced from Starbucks.

It’s still the place to be. Up until a few minutes ago, I was sitting across from Chris Keeslar, editor from Dorchester. Mind you, I wasn’t actually speaking to Chris Keeslar, editor from Dorchester. And no doubt there are other wildly famous people sitting all around me and I don’t even know it. That’s sort of how my life works. I will say that my little EeePC is one of the best conversation starters ever. Everyone wants to know what it is.

I was about to go into information overload, so I decided to take a break from non-stop sessions. I attended Trish Milburn and Julie Linker’s on writing YA that was very cool. It turns out that Darcy and I share an editor with the lovely Julie Linker and we chatted for a few minutes after the session.

I had the best pasta for dinner last night–see, I did get out of the hotel. And I found a tea lounge where I plan to splurge on either the classic English tea or a Russian tea. I can’t decide which as of yet. Opinions?

The kids are having a good time with my sister. Get this, she has some foam curlers and guess who had her hair put up in them so it would be curly in the morning. Yep, Miss B. Forget trolleys and Chinatown and the whole cultural experience. Foam rollers will be the highlight of her trip.