Renovations

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated. Click the image above for a bigger version.

Renovations continue. The spiral staircase is out, but now there's much patching and hammering and plastering and drywalling, temporarily dampening my normally buoyant enthusiasm for working at home. Jeff has hung plastic sheets everywhere in hopes of containing the dust:



I've wrapped the stairs in garbage bags and painter's tape to protect the carpet. Our house looks like a plague containment centre right now. Either that, or elaborate prep for a mega-foodfight. I keep imagining I taste drywall dust at the back of my throat, and am going a bit nuts from the banging and creaking and shouting and heavy feet tromping on my head (well, it SOUNDS like they're tromping on my head).

I am so looking forward to peace and quiet again. Hopefully next week!

Most of my time right now is focussed on (or attempts to focus on) my novel revision prep, fleshing out character motivations and backstory, addressing issues raised in the editor's letter I mentioned a short while back. I am SO excited about this project....!!

Below: Jeff and Ray on the weekend, on the way to see Casino Royale.






Livejournal comments

scrabble, squirrels and line rider

So I received the following e-mail recently:

--
From: Squirrel Liberation Front squirrelliberationfront@gmail.com
Date: Nov 26, 2006 6:41 PM
Subject: Its not over!

i am sure that given the lapse in time that has gone on since your last communication with us you probably assumed that it was over! You probably that we were scared! well, think again!!!! WE ARE WATCHING YOU!!!

Sincerely yours,
www.SquirrelLiberationFront.com
--

My response: HA HA HA! Your feeble threats are no match for my cunning anti-squirrel intellect. Watch away, you furry micro-brained demonspawn!

But back to board games...

Fascinating to read the responses to my Boardgames survey in LJ a couple days ago, which included games like Risk, Monopoly, Life, Talisman, Puerto Rico, Apples To Apples, Munchkin (from tarkrai: "Hearing your 13 year old daughter (at the time) in a perfect Valley Girl voice say "But... it's MY Chainsaw of Bloody Dismemberment!" made it worth the price of admission..."), Risk, Axis, Allies, Bootleggers, Sequence, Chance, Sorry!, Settlers of Catan, Caylus, Power Grid, Advanced Civilization, Arkham Horror, Ticket To Ride, Carcasonne, Thurn, Traders of Genoa, Trivial Pursuit, Encore, Pictionary, Kill Doctor Lucky, Chez Geek, Rummikub, The REAL Game of Life, Dune, Cranium, Catch Phrase, and Scrabble.

Speaking of Scrabble, I have to mention my friends John and Kristen Chew, both of whom organise and play in tournaments. Many of these tournaments are listed on their Poslfit.com page (under Scrabble) as well as on the Toronto Scrabble Club tourney page. Here's a photo of John when I knew him back at the University of Toronto:



You can see a more current photo of him in this photo (posted in my previous Blathering). John's wearing the red shirt.

When involved in organising, John will act in any or all of the following capacities: organiser (arrange logistics for event, book venue, hire staff, register players), director (in charge during the event, emcee/referee), software developer (for on-site or web use), computer operator (entering scores, determining who plays whom, posting web coverage of scores and/or games), or as a player. Kristen has worked as a word judge (back in the days before this job was computerized) and game annotator (records games as they progress on paper and electronically), and also plays in tournaments. John has a long-term contract position as the webmaster for the National Scrabble Association (of Canada and the United States), and also runs the Toronto Scrabble Club.

Kristen (on the left), at one of my sister's book signings:



Kristen was the Toronto Scrabble Club's Division "C" champion the first year she played. John's won a number of short tournaments, was 10th in the first Canadian Championship, and 2nd in the 2nd division at the first U.S. Nationals that he played in. He also had a pretty amusing Scrabble-related letter to the editor published in the Toronto Star a couple days ago. :-)

I asked how much luck was involved in playing Scrabble. John's response:

"There is more luck in Scrabble than in chess, and more luck in poker or backgammon than in Scrabble. There's also more to Scrabble than luck and word knowledge: if you knew the whole dictionary and always played the highest-scoring play, you would have have to be very lucky to win a typical expert tournament. Also, while even the world champion can lose to a much weaker player by drawing poorly, he is much less likely to do so than me because he is better at playing off bad tiles and managing his rack to avoid filling it with tiles that don't go well together. Lastly, it's a good thing that even a top player sometimes loses to a weaker player, because it makes expert Scrabble players typically much better sports than expert chess players."

LINKS FROM MY FRIEND RAY:

25 Funniest Analogies (collected by high school English teachers) One of my favourites: "The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant."

Cool whiteboard animation

LINK COURTESY A FRIEND'S SON:

Thanks to the teenaged son of my friends Tom and Michelle for pointing me to the horribly addictive online game of Line Rider.

But before trying it yourself, do check out this ride (if you're at work, turn down the sound first!). :-)




Livejournal comments

boardgames, paranoia and astrophysics

Happy birthday to Dave Clement and Steve Macdonald!

Jeff and I went gaming at John's and Kristen's last night. I got to finally meet their newest addition to the family (so cute! and he SMILED at me!!) and also chatted with Kristen about books before playing Shadows Over Camelot with John, Tom, Tom's teenaged son, Bruce, and Reid. It was the first time most of us had played the game; I liked it because its cooperative aspect. Basically, we were the Knights of the Round Table, battling against the forces of evil. However, there was a strong chance that ONE of us was a traitor, actually working against the group. The latter aspect added a great deal of fun and paranoia.



It was especially great to see our friend Bruce again (leftmost in the photo above); it's been years since we last saw each other. We hope to get together when Jeff and I visit California next March. Bruce is an astrophysicist at Livermore in California, and he recently completed a feasibility study for extrasolar planet detection using the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), a collaboration between UC Observatories, the California Institute of Technology, and a number of Canadian universities. Bruce brought a (nonfunctional) sample of some adaptive optics technology for us to see:





The prototype deformable mirror above is made of an etched silicon microelectromechanical system which has 1,024 actuators that adjust the shape of the mirror hundreds of times per second. This enables astronomers to correct for air turbulence and atmospheric disturbances which limit the ability of telescopes to see detail.

You can find more info in the June 2006 issue of Science and Technology; our friend Bruce is mentioned in the article.





Livejournal comments

Writer's Digest article, Maya Bohnhoff interview

Above: My webzine article in the Jan/Feb issue of Writer's Digest magazine. Speaking of writing, do check out my interview with Maya Bohnhoff for Inkygirl. Maya and her husband Jeff will be GoHs at Consonance this March. So hey, why not buy her newest book and get it autographed at the convention?

:-)

Had a great Urban Tapestry practice last night with Allison and Jodi. We went over some of our newer songs, including "Hey J.K.," "Sing With Me," "Come Down To GAFilk," and "Paper Boats" (a song by Eva Van Daele-Hunt of Summer and Fall). The pre-registration period for GAfilk ends November 30th, by the way, so don't forget to send in your membership before prices increase. You can find out more about the convention at the GAfilk Web site.



Our spiral staircase is gone. The renovators took it out yesterday; friends of ours in Alberta will be using it in their house. Meanwhile, the floor has been closed off and we have two new rooms to use, yay! Drywalling continues today; Jeff put up plastic sheeting everywhere in hopes of containing the dust.

Finished I, Coriander by Sally Gardner last night. Very satisfying read. The story blends fairy tale fantasy and Commonwealth-era English history.

Interview with Maya Bohnhoff: Maya talks about writing and co-writing, Mr. Twilight, and advice for those thinking about quitting their day jobs to become writers.

Livejournal comments

Book news!

Well, I didn't end up making that Ginger-Mint Chicken Stir-fry after all.

This afternoon, my agent forwarded a long and detailed e-mail from a publisher where the associate editor liked my book manuscript (which started as a NaNoWriMo novel) enough to pass it up the chain to the head of the imprint, whose name evokes my fangirl sigh because of books he's edited that I've adored.

Well, apparently they both like my book enough that the associate editor is interested in working with me on revisions.



Again, it's not an acceptance, but it's a big step closer; Jeff and I went to Fukui to celebrate with sushi. :-)

I am very, VERY excited at the idea of working with this particular editor and this particular publisher. Not surprisingly, the project is going to the top of my priority list. My Blatherings may be somewhat sporadic over the next while, as might any non-urgent projects.

I SO want this.

Wish me luck.

Speaking of NaNoWriMo novels, Will Write For Chocolate has been updated. I've reformatted it for possible use on the NaNoWriMo site, so I'm posting this version below because the text is easier to read.



Livejournal comments