"The Spirit Husband" to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (RT: 3ish months)

"Strength of Mind" to Cemetery Dance (RT: 2-4 months)

...on a side note, I do believe I just saw Jay Lake stroll past our office (well, ok, like 20 minutes ago). I'm a little suspicious, though: he seemed to be wearing a shockingly quiet shirt.

Remove any and all posts indexed from this journal by/to Ljfind





***** 

This is in regards to *this*, which was making some *locked* posts searchable:

http://ljfind.livejournal.com/profile


Interesting what comes up when you put your user name in...  http://ljfind.livejournal.com/profile

Looking at my pay stub, in two weeks I will have accumulated over a week's worth of vacation. Seeing as I've felt the burn out hitting a bit, I thinking that instead of hoarding it, it might be smart to actually take a vacation. I'd be tempted to take a vacation at home, but my parents will guilt me to go to a zillion doctor appointments I've been putting off for 10 years. So, where can I go to get out of Dodge, fairly inexpensively, with little stress?

I've been having fun this summer trying to identify mushrooms. I've made my first really solid identification today, a lovely little puffball called Scleroderma citrinum. It was growing in a cedar bog out on Cape Cod.

I've got two other species from the bog waiting on spore prints for identification. One of them was just everywhere--it's this bright orange, conical cap a few centimeters across that was growing on old rotten cedar stumps. The other one is brown with pinkish gills, that sort of splits apart as it opens up and flattens out.

"Strength of Mind" from Apex Digest.

( Everybody likes me, nobody LOVES me... )

I can't remember if I ever sent it to Writers of the Future -- maybe I never did. If I did, it was so long ago nobody will remember. So that might be a possibility. It's horror-leaning but I don't really read horror-leaning mags to know what's a good fit.

I have no doubt she'll at least be on as a guest star, but I don't think she'll be a permanent member of the cast...seeing as she's just been cast as the lead prosecutor (QC?) in the new Law & Order: London series. I guess Chris Chibnall poached her after using her in Torchwood last series.

Ah well, Doctor Who's (at least temporary) loss is the Dick Wolf Empire's gain....

(And this means I might have to actually watch at least the pilot of L&O:L, doesn't it...?)

So the best part of the Zombie LARP last weekend was getting to play with my new airbrush makeup and try applying some latex tricks that I've picked up over the summer.

A burn skinned patch on a fabulous chica who let me make a mess.

I think I can say I have successfully mastered the easiest form of using liquid latex on skin. The above is a layer of latex with a single ply sheet of tissue paper torn to bits and laid over it. Then another- thicker- layer of latex is applied over that. Once dry, airbrushing commenced with a red blood color, followed by a more purply bruise color, then black. Not the most perfect paint job- but I think for one of my first times doing it- it came out well.

This lovely lady applied the latex and tissue herself. Somehow I forgot to tell her she needed another layer of latex on top and we ended up having to rush so it never got done. Plus a lot of the tissue was fairly flat rather then patched up to make texture since I didn't do a good job describing what had to be done (in my defense I was trying to airbrush someone at the same time).

I airbrushed her and it was definitely more of a pain trying to paint onto the tissue- however the end result ended up looking like raw skin with various tears and flaps so I think the final result came out pretty damn cool. It was probably the neatest looking makeup of the night.

While my own makeup wasn't fabulous (the colors were too strong up close and the yellow/green was definitely too bright) overall I was mostly experimenting with the colors to see how it looked since I did myself last. I was hoping for more of a rotted look. I think it looked okay from far away. Need to perfect keeping one eye open at a time. Next time I need to try to mute the colors down more- maybe with some thin layers of white and/or black more carefully applied- I ended up hitting a few spots too dark with the mute color due to the mirror being far away and me squinting to not get makeup in my eye.


I also did some latex/makeup work on a few more folks that went well- they were all great about letting me mess around. Considering how long I expected it to take- doing a small to medium sized latex wound actually went pretty quick. I never managed to get the cut thing down- I think I needed to apply more tissue to build up the skin and then gently slice through it. Going to do some more research on that. I also need to practice doing bruises more.

Goals for fall:
- getting rotting skin to look good.
- working on my fading and color transitions
-self application

Things learned:
-Lectric shave (a men's before shave liquid) will take off alcohol based makeup (and so far everything else) and has a pleasant smell. Get lots of it.
-S/B by Temptu is too thick and clogs in the airbrush giving you bad coverage- however it is not alcohol based. Dura gives you fantastic coverage and easy application but dries tacky (needs to be set with powder) and requires a remover that has alcohol in it. Still haven't used around the eye region yet so not sure how that would go. Need to get AGCP to try since it was the owner of that brand who recommended the above remover to me.
-Trying to do a cut throat by using a layer of latex as a glue and pinching your skin together to create a fold does not work. Least my attempt didn't. Fortunately that is what a lot of fake blood is for. Unfortunately when you die and fall on the ground said blood then gets everywhere- including your hair if it is long...
-Latex attaches to hair like glue. No seriously. Never put latex where there is hair. The face (avoid eyebrows and beards!) and hands are pretty much the only naturally safe places on most people. :D (but I knew that already).
-The makeup did "mist" a bit in the air but didn't seem to linger no one complained of sneezing up color. Alcohol dissipates quickly so not all that surprising. Make sure you are doing it in a room with a window and don't be afraid to throw a fan on. Also having a mirror in the room is key.
-Regular cake and creme makeup still has lots of uses.
-Pay attention to the poor subject's breathing- give them plenty of opportunities to take a breathe when working on the nose/mouth region. I also took the time to first hit the person with a blast of air then used the makeup. I tried to let them know what I was doing at every step (movement wise) so they wouldn't be startled by the sensation. I *think* that helped a lot (folks tended to jump when the air hit them unexpectedly).
-I NEED A NEW BRUISE WHEEL DAMMIT! I felt bad about using poor Dani's but it really was sooo useful. So now I need a new one since mine is lost.
-I <3 my iwata airbrush and compressor. No srsly. <3.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) the makeup I did for the zombies is very different then what I will need to do for ToV makeup. Most of what we will need for ToV is skin texture and colorings (for Drakkon, moreadin etc). Along with getting some stencils done up for Freilan. I think Mr. No-nose is the only bad guy out there right now where I'm really going to get to use what I learned. But man he is going to look so much creepier. As long as Andy is okay with it that is. :D

Ugh still have so much cleaning to do before Sat. Why did we want to have a big party again?

1. Give me a list of THREE stories that I would NEVER write.
2. I will pick one of the story suggestions and attempt to write a snippet. (I can't promise anything--depends on the suggestions. But I'm willing to try almost anything, the crackier the better.)
3. Spread the meme on your own LJ if you want.

I did these the last time. Jesus fuck, I'd forgotten about the Six/Rygel. And the Rusty/Nine/Ten. Ow. Ow. Ow.

But, er, yeah. Hit me! I'm borede.

Apparently, while I was away on vacation, the good folks at Fictionwise did what I predicted back in January that they'd do: blow the doors wide open on the ebook market.  According to this story in Publisher's Weekly, they have made their terrific eReader software available for free for the iPhone, and are registering thousands of new customers daily.

I have always promoted the eReader software as one of the best functioning ebook platforms, and have always believed that the only real mass-market electronic reading devices would be multipurpose.  As nice as the Kindle and Sony devices are, as stand-alone readers, they will never create a mass-market for electronic reading.  The multipurpose iPhone blasted open the market for smartphones, and now eReader for iPhone will do the same for ebooks.  Mark my words.

As I expected, Readercon interrupted my ability to blog the rest of Josh and Rachel's cross-country trip on a daily basis. However, even though their journey is now ended, I can still give a daily report of what happened after we left them sleeping in Casper, Wyoming. And if all goes well, they'll be back on the Internet tonight and can send me corrections to these reports.

Lots of pictures coming up...

( Read more... )

Rachel told me that crossing into Idaho they drove up a narrow, windy mountain path and down again, which terrified Josh. But beyond that was pretty farmland, and then they made it to their stop for the night, Idaho Falls. And, most importantly of all, they found a Starbucks at the Fred Meyer in Idaho Falls.

By the way, Josh recommended a book to me: Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture by Taylor Clark. I'm barely into the book, and already I've learned that Boston Harbor holds enough caffeine to give the fish a slight buzz, because, um, a lot of Bostonians drink coffee and that caffeine has to end up somewhere eventually.

As soon as I can, I'll post about Day 9 of The Great Drive, which includes a visit to the Craters of the Moon.

(New basic message: Rachel is now going to a midnight showing of the new X-Files movie tonight at the Eugene Valley River Center movie theater, and now has an extra ticket for the 10 pm showing on Friday night. If anyone wants it, let me know.)

Meep. Where did Boston go? It's so rainy I can't see it! It could just be gone! Oh. There is is! Nice show, Torrential Rain Improv Group.

Gah. We sure are getting the weird and wacky weather lately. We are notorious for changeable weather but...

Dear Dental Floss,

It's a small drawer you sit in. How is it possible that I have to search for you for five minutes? And, no. I will not settle for flossing with the cord for my headphones or the one for my iPod charger.

Please see to this matter. The raspberry seed is becoming painful.

Sincerely,
The owner of the drawer in question

For anyone and everyone who is interested in the intersection of Jewish themes and speculative fiction:

At Readercon on Sunday (which happened to be the 17th of Tammuz, a Jewish fast day), writer Leah Cypess gathered a small group of Jewish speculative fiction writers together. We sat in the Con Suite, not eating, and discussed the issues involved in writing science fiction and fantasy stories that have a Jewish element or theme to them.

Although there already exist groups devoted to the discussion of Jewish science fiction (the group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jewishSF/ comes to mind), as far as we could tell there was no group specifically devoted to Jewish science fiction from the perspective of the writer. Therefore, Leah decided that we should form such a group, and setting up an email discussion group on yahoo is the start.

So, if you're a writer who is interested in writing Jewish speculative fiction, feel free to join. Our grandiose plans include a possible small convention devoted to Jewish speculative fiction, and the question of how to get more markets to publish such fiction.

The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jewishSpecFic/ . Our one-line description: Jewish Speculative Fiction Writers is for writers who are interested in working on fiction at the intersection of speculative fiction and Jewish themes. A LiveJournal Community for the same purpose is at jewishspecfic.

Honey was giving Mom and I something of a scare yesterday evening. Normally her behavior is either sleep on a favorite spot or roll around and meow loudly until someone pets her. Yesterday she was restless but not keen on moving much, was in and out from the deck, moving like she was sore, and most notably NOT purring when petted. Her meows for attention were much more subdued but constant, and I was getting worried that she was having some sudden failure.

She ended up perched on one of her sunning spots, on top of mom's dresser. An hour later I went in to pet her and she was alert and purring happily. Since then it's been like nothing happened. (She also had a vet visit last week and no medical issues were found.)

At least she's fine now.

Liam Finn, how are you so charming?!?

Seriously. I signed up for his newsletter and it arrived in my inbox and...I don't even know. Normally if someone sent me an email using 32 point bright blue text I'd think he was uncouth. But that's what he did and I'm just sitting here grinning like a looon. He's going to be in Boston on October 7th (at the Paradise) and I am so there.

Anyone else interested? He's pretty awesome. And I really need to get to work, hence no links to him being awesome.

I wonder if the town of Chicopee requires a permit to build an ark in one's backyard? The amount of rain we are getting I am thinking of building one.