Bovine Aspirations Debut

Newsy Bits About Writing and Writers, Writing

My story of a singing cow (and her not-so-gullible neighbor) is up on Bewildering Stories.  It’s short, funny and free–enjoy! — On a side note, I looked up the spelling of gullible on dictionary.com, and liked this explanation of its origin: “1793 (implied in gullibility), earlier cullibility (1728), probably connected to gull, a cant term for “dupe, sucker”

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Orange Armor

Speculative Science

A sometime board rat and engineer, Richard Palmer has come up with a protective substance, called “d3o”, of intelligent molecules that minimize impact.  It reportedly goes from jello-like to tough-guy whenever hit by a direct force.  And it can be a fashion statement, too!

Getting Paid to Wait

1 CommentWriting

I had understood that my flash story ‘Ghost Spider’ would be in either the Sep. or Oct. issue of AlienSkin, so when I got the check I was delighted and watching for it to go up…but, like most watched pots, this one never boiled.  Perhaps they celebrate a much creepier Christmas than I do, and we’ll see it

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The Mommy Van

Home in the Rookery, Just for Laughs

Mothers can tell you that this ‘Mom my Ride!’ clip only goes halfway…they don’t even have stickers on the windows! [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/HEFE3B0Rje0″ width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]

Bird-killing Rats

Writing

Tonight we discussed my latest story in the writer’s group.  The guys had some great suggestions, and pointed out that one problem with the story was that, as it stands, they were tempted to root for the despised ratmen rather than the Raven, assasin, protagonist. Uh, hmmm.  Have to fix that. They also brought up

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The Dreaded Call

Home in the Rookery

As I was cramming my way throught my textbooks today I got the call that every parent most fears: “Hi, this is you son’s school calling, how are you?” “Great, great.” (can you get to the point?) “Okay, well, your son hurt his foot today…apparently he was kicking a wall at recess.” “Hmm, oh dear.” (kicking

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Targeting Agents (in a good way)

Writing

I snagged a helpful bit of information from Pat Esden on hunting down a good agent, and bagging the contract when you find one.  The article is by Ethan Ellenberg, so it gives the inside view from the agent perspective.

Squawk Like A Pirate Day

Just for Laughs, Writing

In honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day, I’ve sent my submissions out in true pirate style. Ahoy, me beauties!  I be sendin’ ye a yarn or two, en ye be sendin’ it back with me pretty silvers or ye’ll be a bilge rat, hear?  Cap’n War’ll slit yer gizzard and dice it fer the sharks if

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Planting for the Spring

Home in the Rookery

The five-year old and I bought 100 daffodill bulbs today and chopped our way past the one thousand and one rocks, through the brick-like clay, and passed the construction debris to put thirty of them in the ground.   I seriously pulled out one chunk of concrete the size of a dinner plate. However, it was

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