x-posted. Welcome back to Spec the Halls ! Spec the Halls is a contest for speculative winter holiday-themed fiction, artwork, and poetry. The holiday may be fictional or real; it may be Christmas or Yuletide as we know and love it, or it may be something much stranger. Submissions open November 1st , and the earlier you submit, the more likely your submission is to be a featured submission...

x-posted. Welcome back to Spec the Halls ! Spec the Halls is a contest for speculative winter holiday-themed fiction, artwork, and poetry. The holiday may be fictional or real; it may be Christmas or Yuletide as we know and love it, or it may be something much stranger. Submissions open November 1st , and the earlier you submit, the more likely your submission is to be a featured submission...

From the CONvergence "Mythology of the Future" panel , I was left with an interesting thought that most myths and fairytale lessons have SF/F equivalents, like "don't forget you're human," and "objects may want to be human." It would be interesting to explore and create more parallels, from a writing perspective. (This is where I keep my story ideas, so when I have ideas separate from freewriting...

These are my panel notes about what I found useful and interesting and what thoughts and ideas I had that were sparked from these panels: Fantasy and the Family Embracing Exposition What is Fan-Fic? Food, Fashion, and Fornication Here: http://cloudscudding.livejournal.com/846330.html

I had put this note at the end, but it's a long post and I think the note stands better at the beginning: One thing being surrounded by writery types all weekend did was make me think about my intended audience for this post. And I decided it's me, several years from now when I can't remember what this weekend was like--hence the amount of detail here. If other people enjoy reading it, I'm happy about...

I have tried two new-to-me restaurants this week, both of which went well. Bibo on Diffley here in Eagan is an Italian place in the location of a previous Italian place. The previous place was not very interesting, fairly expensive for what you were getting, and featured staff who would cast disdainful looks upon people who showed up without reservations--even if the restaurant was fairly empty and...

Here's part 2 of my notes about what I found useful and interesting and what thoughts and ideas I had that were sparked from these panels: * One-night Stand vs. Round Two * Children's and YA Fantasy: Not Just for Kids

Part 1 of my Fourth Street Fantasy panel notes can be found here . These are my notes about what I found useful and interesting and what thoughts and ideas I had that were sparked from these panels: * How to Sound Smart on Panels. * How Has Fantasy Changed in the Last 20 Years. * Reasons Things Go Wrong ... In the Crafting of Stories.

I took my cane to work, left it in my car, reasoning I'd go get it if I really needed it. About an hour later, I decided that yes, I really need it, and so I'm using it now. porphyrin kindly dropped off some arnica for me, and she recommended heat, Tylenol, arnica, elevation, compression, and no karate for at least a week. No karate???? *sulks* I should also talk to sensei. I'm doing the ...

I'm limping today. I Did Something Bad to my knee about a month ago during a class when we were doing spin kicks. I do not like spin kicks, I do not do them well, and apparently I did not do them properly, because I've been getting a low-grade "there's something wrong here" every time I squatted. A pain on the left side of the right knee joint. I have been not pleased with the weight gain of the past...