W2 - Wendy to the Second Power

• 10:26 hey @gumption just did a blog post inspired by your post on consequential strangers Thanks for #brainfood ow.ly/RnN4 #
• 11:21 catching up on all my blog posts before the end of the year! silona.org #
• 16:21 woot girlie day first lunch w @nerdette then coworking w @marianna_m and @gloriakt at @spiderhouse laughing at ow.ly/RsJR #bangable #
• 16:48 #plan Stitch n Bitch at Austin TX - my house, Saturday, January 16, 2010 plancast.com/a/4yh #

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Does anyone need a 2 GB microdisk? $5 and it's yours!

Longtime review and news site IROSF announced today that they would be shutting down in February.

Seattle, WA, 12/30/2009 – After six years of publication the Internet Review of Science Fiction (irosf.com) will cease operations after the February, 2010 issue. Publisher L Blunt “Bluejack” Jackson and Editor Stacey Janssen expressed their gratitude to all the subscribers, contributors, authors, and especially the volunteers who made IROSF such a success since its first issue in January, 2004.

Continuous financial shortfalls added to the challenges of  publishing IROSF, and Jackson has expressed his intent to turn to new challenges related to the economy and logistics of Internet publishing. “What we learned with IROSF and AEon Speculative Fiction was that neither traditional nor community-driven economic models met our needs, and that the complexity of managing a distributed volunteer pool burned people out, despite a steady increase in revenue and readership. Our plan is to use this knowledge, and the ready availability of new distribution channels, to create the kind of environment that would have empowered the editors to achieve the success that IROSF’s superb content always deserved.”

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I am ending this year soooo pissed at J4. We were supposed to go down to Austin First Night this afternoon, worked it out for the past few days. She just now at 2pm calls and says she wants to do her Significant Other's taxes today.

Not sure why one cannot do them later. Or why one needs to wait until Dec 31st, but piss on it.

And it's like a half-dozen times this year she cancels something, or sets up an event and cancels part of it, or just doesn't show.

I'll probably go down there by myself, but only half the fun that way. Dammit.

Yes, it's my birthday today which is why I never go to New Year's Eve parties any more. They're always celebrating the END of my birthday and so they depress me. Instead, I've thrown dinner parties in my apt (when I had a usable kitchen minus books on the table/floor), gone out to dinner with some friends, and more recently go to a friend's house for dinner. Which I'm doing this evening.

I've also hit a milestone with this one. Which is weird? Who'd have thought I'd ever be this old? Not I ;-).

Anyway, a Happy new year to everyone.

from Persona Prime at http://silona.org/wdydwyd-part-2/2009/12/31/

So I ignored the signs about identity. I waffled back and forth trying to create privacy on important things like home addresses while trying to maintain my brand. In a way I was forced into it. Whenever anyone hears the name Silona and they know me – they assume it is me. It’s a reasonable assumption. But when some students of mine discovered silona.ch, I realized I had more to do. Silona.ch was a porn site for a dominatrix in the Czech Republic. Unfortunately she never showed her face and hard dark hair and a similar build to mine. Everyone seemed to believe me that it wasn’t me but.. the seeds of doubt were there. I knew I had to work more on creating and preserving my own identity. And I was tired of addressing the issue – “no that isn’t me…”

So I gave up on privacy. For me it had become a lost cause. So many sites and agencies wanted my address and phone. It had accidentally been published. So many things depended on my SSN and name. I had already been stalked once and because of that Dad and I had done concealed handgun classes together. (Yes I own 4 guns. Yes I am a Texan and a military brat.) I realized privacy as secrecy was a thing of the past – it just took me awhile to completely accept it.

I know it’s hard. I mean I do large scale databases for a living.

So I went looking for a way to fix it… my first attempt was a royal failure.  I realized things don’t just need to be available.  They need to be equitable.

As individuals, the electronic medium was forcing us to be transparent to businesses and government but they did not have to report back to us.

I decided to strive to create more equitable relationships.  Step was get government transparent… step two was business.  But I didn’t tell many people.  See in 2004 in Texas – most people already thought I was a little “unrealistic.” (to put  it nicely.)

Recently though I refocused.  Now I am focused on citations for government documents, creating citable data, and openbanking.

I don't have a reflecting post for the end of this year yet, maybe I'll get to one later. Or maybe I won't. I'm much more about looking forward than looking back.

I don't feel great today -- my niece had a pretty bad cold the entire time she was here, and my brother has already succumbed to it. I've had two significant cups of coffee this morning and all I want to do is fall asleep. My throat is also scratchy and I ache.

I still wrote the start of chapter 16 this morning, ~2600 words. It was slow going but the perfect spot in some ways, really easy to let go of the here and now and sink into the world.

I think the words I wrote this morning are going to be scrambled -- misspelled and homophones used. Also, I know I didn't do enough description of their surroundings in places. However, I also know that what happened is correct, these were the right scenes, and they have the right tempo and pacing. After the bad guy was defeated there needed to be a little bit of a breather, so possibly the first 800 words of the chapter are slower, more leisurely. Then the pace had to pick up again, the threat escalated higher. Just disbanding the bad guy wasn't enough, and the characters knew it. They still needed a breather before they began again, a chance to walk across a field. I think that's the right thing to do, it feels right for these novels. (I keep thinking the next novel is not going to have as many of these breathing, level places.)

Tomorrow I finish chapter 16 if I can. Then it's the last chapter. I won't finish it all before the 1st, but I will finish it all before I arrive back in Seattle, if it's at all possible.

Happy new year to those who celebrate!

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from Persona Prime at http://silona.org/neural-pathways-and-ruts/2009/12/31/

So there is this story I tell often to explain many of my perspectives on the world.  I realized it wasn’t posted here and I really should post it so that people have some contextualization.

So have you ever had to stop yourself midstory?  Do you find it painful?  Do you feel like you just stumbled?  Maybe even stumbled and fell?  Have you noticed that it is even worse when it is a favorite story or a frequently told story?  Have you noticed the elderly people often have a stuck set of stories?  I mean you know they are old – they most have more stories than that and yet… they keep applying the same ones to the same phrases?

Well your brain is not unlike a network of roadways.  Paths become easier to take the more often you take them.  I mean this is normal – it is called learning.  It is how we survive.  It costs us less energy (literally) to think the same way.  The problem with this is that our brains can get so used to things that it creates ruts – deep grooves.  Those ruts can become difficult even painful to deviate from.  They become so deep that they become tunnels so that we can’t see the other possible paths.

I know that I already have those ruts all over my brain.  And for the most part, I tried to make sure those are worthwhile journeys.  But I purposely try to make myself jump out of them from time to time to keep my brain nimble.

So when you tell a story… look around – anyone bored?  You might be in a rut where you can just barely see over it.  Stop engage that person – jump off the path and see what’s there and have a little conversation.

oh yea – and if you notice me getting in a rut … PLEASE ask me a question to gimme a little push out of it

from Persona Prime at http://silona.org/consequential-strangers-and-the-now/2009/12/31/

So I was  reading @Gumption ’s blog post on Consequential Strangers and was struck about how weak ties can often be more powerful than your inner circle.  I thought “Well, why would this occur…”

I think much of this has to do with filters and judgment. When we get closer to people, we decide that we “know” them and we project much of ourselves on to them.

Often times, when we do this we limit people with baggage. Sometimes we create self fulfilling prophecies even.

My favorite example, how many times does a parent expect you to act like a 12 yr old and even though you promised yourself you wouldn’t yell at her like a 12 yr old – you find yourself doing it?

With any normal person this would never occur…  And it would certainly not occur with a random stranger.  But for some reason, we are able to give better suggestions and often be better people with strangers.  Time to lose both the amount of projection of self we give to good friends.  I think is slows down the grey matter.  Instead of coming up with solutions instead it just accesses memories both positive and negative rather than looking for novel solutions…

I think I will steal from my happiness post earlier and try to short circuit my neural circuitry when that happens by some physical trick of existing in the now and maybe reroute that neural pathway.

from Persona Prime at http://silona.org/happiness-and-virtues/2009/12/31/

I believe that working to cultivate these values actually insures that you handle the top 4 levels of Mazlow’ hierarchy.

So what does that say about the role of religion? ponder.  Of course I am a believer that I can have virtues and not be religious.  So I do like the assumption here that these are biologically based in regards to long term selfishness and survival of  people and culture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_Strengths_and_Virtues_%28book%29

“The organization of these virtues and strengths is as follows:

1. Wisdom and Knowledge: creativity, curiosity, open-mindedness, love of learning, perspective, innovation
2. Courage: bravery, persistence, integrity, vitality
3. Humanity: love, kindness, social intelligence
4. Justice: citizenship, fairness, leadership
5. Temperance: forgiveness and mercy, humility, prudence, self control
6. Transcendence: appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope, humor, spirituality

The introduction of CSV suggests that these six virtues are considered good by the vast majority of cultures and throughout history and that these traits lead to increased happiness when practiced.”

Resources

• Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry on "Tricky Linguistics"

</ul>

Member News

• SFWA member Matthew Johnson offers his Aurora-eligible story "The Coldest War" (Asimovs, Feb 09) online.
• Welcome to SFWA's newest Associate member, Beth Cato! Her story "Biding Time" is in Pedestal Magazine.

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Apparently there's a new tactic for spammers with Live Journal accounts: post insulting comments in an attempt to get traffic for the spam journal. Because when someone posts a bizarre off-the-wall accusation in one of your posts, you might go to their journal to see what the hell they're talking about, and see they've got one post advertising a weight-loss drug site. Gosh, LJ is just getting more fun every day; I almost can't stand all the fun.

***

An article at Black Gate: Howard’s Forgotten Redhead: Dark Agnes by Ryan Harvey. Agnes de Chastillon is a peasant girl, the daughter of an illegitimate son of the Duke of Chatillon. Her father, a former mercenary of the Free Companions, is a lout about to give Agnes into a hateful marriage. Agnes takes a desperate—and perfectly Howardian—way out: she stabs her groom to death at the altar and dashes off into the woods. The story never quite retains this level of gutsy shock again, but Howard makes Agnes into a tough figure the equal of any of his male heroes.

Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st Century Writer has an article on Critics on rookie mistakes, and how to avoid them when submitting your book for review Ron Charles, Deputy Editor, Washington Post Book World:

_What are some rookie mistakes writers and publishers make when submitting a book for review?_

Writers should not submit books for review. We want to deal only with writers’ publishers (and no self-published books, please, or cleverly disguised self-published books). Do not call to ask if we received your book. We have no idea. We’re getting 150 books a day. We only know if we’ve assigned your book. And in that case, we’ll contact you; no need to call us.

Well, the time has finally arrived. My iastate.edu mailing address has been deactivated. So if you've not updated your address books, let me ask for you to do it now. Not too surprisingly, the best email address for me is now badger2305 "at" gmail.com. Thanks!

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