Your human is not a toy. May contain moving parts and independent thoughts. Owner's manual not included. While the typical lifespan of a human is 60-90 years, you accept your human as-is. We will not repair any flaws in craftsmanship. All humans contain flaws in craftsmanship. Should a replacement be required, you must obtain one at your own cost. There is no warranty on your human. We are not responsible...

Happy birthday to priscellie , and belated happy birthday to carandol and happy anniversary to rushthatspeaks and gaudior . I have slept notably badly this past three nights in a row, so a detailed review of the excellent production of Mamet's Speed the Plow papersky and I saw yesterday afternoon must needs wait until I have a bit more brain.

Purely by accident , I read this , which not only has a detailed explanation of how bad introductions and footnotes can be, a story about teaching just barely going right, and a "Very Secret Diary of Wil Shakespeare".

Author interviews, news, giveaways and other goodies galore! And a lot, lot more below.... jennifer_brozek 's story got an honorable mention in a review of the anthology The World Is Dead. Congrats! Plus, she has another story up at Wily Writers for people to check out! More writerly madness - check out the Noble Struggle of a Talented Writer to Get Published. Courtesy of spitphyre...

In two linked posts, NY Times Bestselling author Jennifer Crusie posts a NaNoWriMo-riffic rough draft , and two days later posts about her process for analyzing the scene for revision . Jo Walton and other smart people discuss it here on her LJ . I’m in there talking, too. Personally, I do something very like this when I have a scene that doesn’t work but I can’t figure out why. I don’t normally...

Loads of author news - book reissues, articles, obits and much more... In case you missed it, Seattle Geekly has a new episode - this one's about indie comix! coffeeem wrote about the reissue of her book, Bone Dance , (with a sneak peek at the cover) Needless to say, any book by Emma Bull being available again is a cause for joy! There's a new Vampire Files audiobook out now: ...

I'm enjoying all your birthday links, working my way through the and commenting as I do -- they're like small wrapped presents, waiting for me to click on them. Thank you! Several links from other places that are delighting me this week: asakiyume is telling a lovely story about two girls -- one who lives in the sea, one who is imprisoned beside a volcano -- and about their countries...

Don't get me started on that subject : "Describe in single words, only the good things that come in to your mind about. . . installers." An all-too-common phrase, illustrated . [Via mikailborg ] papersky 's elf policy . (See also stakebait 's, in comments.) A reason to use Google Wave . Tempting. [Via shadowsong ] Yay for Washington State. Three boos for Virginia...

This poem is really good , and then there's one in the second comment that I kinda like better.

Very fun weekend of visiting daharyn . Friday night was Haunted , review may follow, play about a late-nineteenth century poltergeist case in Nova Scotia which was a lot of fun and had some reliably good local actors being good. Also there was lots of wandering around bits of montreal daharyn had not yet explored, with daharyn taking pictures, and a failure to get cupcakes...