Stranger - and Scarier - than Fiction

Science Fiction and Other ODDysseys, or rather Ann Wilkes, was the victim of a burglary. The jewels I can live without. I'm hoping the insurance will not weasel out of covering the nearly new, not recently backed-up MacBookPro. Between that and my short-term gig as Volunteer Coordinator for the Sonoma County Book Festival, SFOO has suffered a bit. I'm breaking my silence with a post that is someone less than science fictional, but falls under the category of "you can't make this stuff (changed from shit for the tender-eared readers) up".

When I still had my lovely MacBookPro, I was unable to print wirelessly. I finally decided that that was getting a bit old - especially since I wanted to retire the desktop computer. So, several online chats later, Lexmark gives up. They don't know why I can't print wirelessly. Huh. This is after they made me wait two days while the team tried to recreate the conditions and fix the problem. Of course they made me rehash what we already did in spite of the fact that the problem ticket already existed. Just gave up. We don't know. Turns out it may have been the wireless router. I know this now because we had trouble with it when trying to get the desktop back up and running after the burglary. That two-hour ordeal included one useless call to Linksys, a call to the ISP, then another call to Linksys, (this time speaking to someone who actually knew what he was doing).

So, then the one piece of software I still didn't have on my beloved, now-stolen laptop was Quickbooks. I was using Quicken on the desktop and decided since I needed to buy software, why not think long-term? You know, to when I'm actually making so much money as a writer I need business software to track it all. :)

I swear on my first edition copy of Vernor Vinge's Fire Under the Deep that this is the actual chat conversation that was emailed to me. It doesn't say I can't share it with you all, so hopefully Intuit won't get bent out of shape. But we can all hope they'll get better customer service chatters. And how much you want to bet that the operator wasn't named "Lois"? By the way, it was all a moot point just three short days later. That's when I was burglarized.


General Info
Chat start time Sep 4, 2012 10:14:02 PM EST
Chat end time Sep 4, 2012 10:31:32 PM EST
Duration (actual chatting time) 00:17:30
Operator Lois
Chat Transcript
info: Please wait for a Chat Consultant to respond. Your wait time will be approximately 0 minute(s) and 1 second(s).
info: Welcome to QuickBooks Sales Chat. You are now chatting with 'Lois'. I'll be your QuickBooks Business Consultant. How can I help you today?
Lois: You're very much welcome! It's been a pleasure chatting with you today! When you leave this chat you will be offered a brief survey. Please click the “Close” button to end the chat. Your feedback is important to us, so that we can serve you better in the future. Have a wonderful day!
Lois: Sorry.
you: I have been using Quicken for a long time. I'm a writer who is not yet making a profit. Is Quick Books overkill?
Lois: Thank you for choosing to chat with QuickBooks Desktop Sales, my name is Lois. May I have your name please?
you: Ann
Lois: Hello there and pleased to meet you online Ann! How may I assist you?
you: I can transfer my Quicken data to Quickbooks, right?
you: Is it an upgrade if I have Quicken?
Lois: Yes you can transfer the data. You will have to convert the files first.
you: are there online tutorials to learn how to integrate with turbotax? Convert files to what? And how? I have a recent backup.
Lois: For that, just to set your expectations, you have reached the Desktop Sales team and I may not be able to address your concern. What I can do is provide you our Technical Support team number to better assist you.
Lois: Here's the number. 800-825-8168
you: So, do I get an upgrade price if I'm converting from Quicken?
you: I will, but please answer my other questions first.
you: there are two other unanswered questions
you: upgrade? and tutorials.
Lois: No. It will be the wamr. 20% discounted price.
you: OK and if I am only dealing with expenses and royalties in addition to regular personal stuff and no mortgage or other interest payments, is Quicken still a better fit?
Lois: Yes that's right.
you: what's right? Quicken is better for my needs?
Lois: You're most welcome. Would there be anything else that I may assist you with?
you: R U serious? You haven't answered any of my questions! Focus!
you: I didn't thank you either.
Lois: Quicken is designed for personal finances while QuickBooks is more on business.
you: Get your conversations straight or give me to someone who's paying better attention.
you: I know that much. Where do I fall if I'm only dealing with royalties and expenses?
you: Do you even know/
you: ?
Lois: For royalties and expenses, I suggest QuickBooks and not Quicken.
info: Your chat transcript will be sent to kawilkes@gmail.com at the end of your chat.

That's when I gave up...

SFOO welcomes staff blogger, D. E. Helbling

Science Fiction and Other ODDysseys will be three years old next month! Being a toddler, it needs lots of attention, so it doesn't get into mischief. So, I've asked for reinforcements. Starting later this week, D. E. Helbling will bring you science fiction news with a sense of humor and style very similar to my own. I'm so excited to have him on board, bringing fresh content and energy.

D. E. Helbling is a writer and engineer living in the Pacific Northwest. His own fiction has appeared in legacy e-zines such as Quanta and Nocturnal Ooze and more recently with Under the Moon. His technical interests include virtual world A.I., 3D digital art and paranormal research. When he is not blogging for SFOO or working on his own creations, he can be found loitering around the d. e. helbling blog, swapping critiques with fellow writers, playing a lively retro game of Q2:LOX or banging out a melancholy tune on his Yamaha P-90.

As it happens, the first story that I actually got paid for was to Nanobison, an ezine that D. E. Helbling ran for a while.

And that's not all! Ugh! I sound like an infomercial! I have reviewers, too. What I want to know is who leaked it to the publishers? Already I have five shiny new books, mostly ARCs, that I didn't even request. Books seem to be falling out of the sky. And the best thing? They're not books on history, cooking and the Tao of Noodling (which has nothing whatsoever to do with pasta, btw)! They're actually science fiction and fantasy titles from ACE/ROC and DAW!

I'm taking the rest of the year off from reading books for review, and relying on my wonderful reviewers. I will introduce my reviewers properly next week. Please cross your fingers for me that all this help will mean I actually get my own fiction pumping out the door.

Speaking of which, if anyone knows a good paying market for a YA urban fantasy, let me know. I have a story that everyone likes, but just isn't quite right for the mainstream sci-fi market. It begins with a true Pacific Northwest tragedy in the 40s and gets quickly fantastical. Think swimming dragon, Native American legend and physical transformations.

Science fiction and fantasy TV - old and new

After nearly a week of the creeping crud (AKA summer cold), I'm starting to return to the land of the living. And I couldn't even catch up on my reading! My head hurt too bad. I hate that. So I watched some science fiction. Would you believe I saw Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie) for the first time? It was great. I love Donald Sutherland. Next time I have that much TV viewing time on my hands, I'm going to watch the series. I AM a Browncoat after all. Joss Whedon rocks.

And the new season of Being Human started Saturday. That was a plus! It's on BBC America and it's must-see TV. And then last week, we had the lovely crossover between Warehouse 13 and Eureka.

Here's a clip from a ComicCon panel with the Warehouse 13 cast.


Allison Scagliotti's character, Claudia Donovan, on Warehouse 13 reminds me of Percy Montana from Starhunter. Any Starhunter diehards out there? I keep looking for Tanya Allen. What happened to her? What did we do before Google? I just looked her up. Apparently, she was on Silent Hill. I would have known this if I'd watched it on Sunday when it came on. And she's in a movie called Magic due out some time this year.

Here's a great look at Percy.



I just begged for a review copy of The Evolutionary Void by Peter F. Hamilton. The literary mash-ups with vampires, werewolves and robots have been fun, but now I need some meat.

I'm revamping my blog lists. So far, I've eliminated "author buddies" (sorry guys). My buddies who write science fiction and have updated blogs will reappear in the new SF Author Blogs list which will happen later this week. My blog seems to be growing out of its bounds. I might even add another page for submission guidelines and author resources. How many people scroll to the bottom of this monstrosity?

Brian Gilmore over at Ranker loves lists as much as I do. Today, he sent me this one: Top 8 Geekiest Things Ever Sent Into Space .



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SFOO makes top 45 SF blog list!

Thanks fans, writers and sf geeks alike. Science Fiction and Other ODDysseys has been awarded the 2010 Top 45 Sci-Fi Book Blogs award from Awarding the Web. See the whole list.

Let the voting begin! Atom.com and Lucasfilm announced the finalists for their ninth annual “Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge”. You can view the finalist fan-made films at starwars.atom.com and vote for your favorite. Voting ends on August 2nd. Some of these are on the long side, so schedule a good time to watch and pop some popcorn and settle in, enjoy and vote.

Comic-con was in the news this year for the protests and counter-protests, and again because of a violent episode on Saturday. Someone got stabbed by a ballpoint pen during a screening.

The protest footage at Comics Alliance is hysterical. One would hope that the protestors from Westboro Baptist Church could find real evil to wage war on instead of facing off over comic book heroes. They do know it's fiction, right?

Finally, how about some great mysteries for you to chew on? I know this is a sf blog, but I'm very tempted to run another flash fiction contest around these two events. I think our incredible imaginations can conjure some great fiction using these as jumping off points. Of course, I may just decide to do a story of my own instead. I love a mystery -- especially a science-fictionalized one. ;)

First up is the Money Pit. The biggest treasure hunt of all time. Treasure hunters know where the treasure is, but do to the magnificently engineered booby traps, none have been able to reach it. They're starting again after their permit was granted on July 15th. The Money Pit, located on Oak Island in Nova Scotia, is conjectured to be a treasure hidden by pirates, the Knights Templar or Francis Bacon. It's all just guesswork at this point. A few artifacts from the higher levels of this incredibly deep pit have been recovered. Men have died trying to reach the bottom. Read all about it at www.oakislandtreasure.co.uk.

In England, a second circular grouping like Stonehenge but made of wood has been discovered near the first. This CNN story has pictures of the second site.

Great grist for the mill. Hey, why not link the two...





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Increasing the odds and the faces we show each other

As I stared at a rejection for a story today, I was not only dismayed that the story so many editors liked, had been rejected once again, but because I'm running out of SFWA-approved venues to send it to.

AND I don't have enough stories in circulation. I need to take my own advice and think several moves ahead. I need to have ready two or three other appropriate target magazines to send each of my pieces to upon rejection. Rejection happens. We have to plan for it and move past it. I often refer to it as kicking my chicks out of the nest. Of course, just having the next place lined out may not be all there is to do. We have to make sure the magazine still open for submissions, the guidelines haven't changed and --all too often-- reformat it.

For instance, if it was formatted for a print mag and you're sending it to an ezine, you may have to lose the double spaces between lines and the hanging indention for the first line of each paragraph (using instead an extra line between paragraphs). Still others demand .text docs, which is even more work, putting all those underlines before and after words that need to be italicized. A great many of my stories have inner dialog and even aliens projecting thoughts. Therefore, I'm big on italics. >sigh<

So, I think my answer to this is to schedule a regular time when I go through all my original and reprint stories that have been rejected and send them back out. One of the reasons people are chronically late is that they underestimate the amount of time things take. I think this is part of my problem. I need to get a grip on how long it takes to send out submissions and schedule times throughout the year to do it. That's why I like the Broad Universe mailing parties. That's precisely what they're for. Only the last one occurred when I had no time to spare, alas.

I'm still loathe to reformat a piece for the following magazine. It might (hopefully!) be all for nothing.

That's enough about rejection. One can only take so much, you know. ;)

I still haven't received my contributor's copy of The Mystery of Fate: Common Coincidence or Divine Intervention? It looks like it's a very professionally put together antho.

I did manage to knock out two book reviews and an article for a local magazine this week. And I've made progress on a story for an anthology. Maybe this weekend I can work on a rewrite of one of my new stories thus increasing the odds of both rejection letters and acceptance letters. It's rare that the first one is an acceptance. It's all a process. Oh, we weren't talking about rejection anymore, huh?

I tried to edit my recording of a radio interview and got stuck. I think I'm going to have to ask for help with this one. I was the only guest on an hour-long show. That's more of me than most people want to hear at once and the file is gynormous. I want to edit out parts into a more manageable size and also separate out the part where I read a short story on the air. It would be nice to offer a story read by the author on my website.

I found some SF news you might be interested in over at Locus. Namely, the 2010 inductees of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Octavia E. Butler, Roger Zelazny, Douglas Trumbull and Richard Matheson. So I knew there was a SF Museum in Seattle and I also knew that there was a music museum, in fact I was there the year it opened. But I had no idea they were one in the same place: Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. Egads! I feel like I've been living under a rock. Anyway, that's where the ceremony will take place in June.

Those of you who share listservs with me have already seen this, so talk amongst yourselves. The Speculative Literature Foundation is offering a $750 grant to a budding speculative fiction writer of 50 years of age or older. The deadline is March 31st, so don't delay if that's you.

Finally, I've been thinking a lot about privacy, or our lack thereof lately. And the choices we make when we post things online. As in face to face encounters, we have different faces we show to different people. Some of us do this more than others, but I refuse to believe there are people in this world that don't do this. So, when we're posting all this stuff online, are we some sort of weird composite? One that is not really who we are either, because we're picking and choosing what we say instead of prompted by someone's pointed questions?

I'm a big fan of House. A recent episode had a woman who blogged about EVERYTHING. She couldn't do anything without blogging about it. This character made the statement that you can know a person more through their blogging than through actual conversations. Her rationale was that she was (and presumed others were) more honest and open in her blog than face to face or on the phone. She shared every last detail on her blog including arguments with her husband. Personally, I think if anyone really is like that, they need help. That's really obsessive.

Well, like it or not, this is my science fiction writer face. I try to stay on topic and my readers come back because they know what they'll find here.

And then I read this article in the NYT about online privacy and identity theft. Makes you think.


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Cloudy days and dog day afternoons

Things are quiet on the writing front and I have been too busy to troll for SF news.

I got the weekly email from The Red Room wanting me to blog on their featured topic. This one was share your most embarrassing photo from high school and blog about it. Why on Earth would I want to go and do a fool thing like that? I mean, really?

But I thought you might enjoy this picture my hubby took. He posted it on Facebook with the caption, 'alien space ship or just a cloud?' Kind of spooky, huh?



And here's hubby (Patrick Wilkes, btw) with our dog, Alegro, a couple weekends ago up on a hill near where we live. They call it a mountain. Having lived near the cascades, I call it a hill.



Obviously this one was taken by my husband with the actual camera, as opposed to my camera phone.



I haven't once blogged on The Red Room's featured topics. I would just as soon blog about, oh, I don't know, WRITING? Or my genre. Not about my favorite this or that or special memory or whatever. I guess if I ever became famous, people might be interested in all that. Maybe. But then I wouldn't have to blog on five different sites any more!

I write all day on weekdays, some weeknight evenings and weekends. Red Room will just have to wait.

Speaking of which, I'm half-way through with the next Awesome Lavratt tale. Horace and the Askaran (big lizard guy from chapter 1) are back. I've been posting teasers on Facebook. Horace just got lizard puke in the face. I love torturing poor Horace.


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Conferencing, conventioning and reviewing

The 2009 Redwood Writers Conference was a big hit. My presentation, Developing Your Online Presence (as an author), aside from technical difficulties out of my control (including the hotel's wifi quitting), went well. I had over 40 people in attendance. I met a fellow tech presenter in the bookstore and we're laying plans to collaborate on future efforts and invest in our own digital projector. Very exciting. It's not writing, but it's fun stuff and it will pay. :)

Last week, I hopped onto the Writing Mafia group on LinkedIn and asked for examples of author blogs in which the subject was not necessarily writing, but related to their work to add to my visual aids.

Here are the ones I used.

• Freelance writer and photographer Betsy S. Franz has several blogs. I used this one: The Nature Lady.
  
• Lynne Butler writes books on law. She writes on law on her blog as well: Estate Law Canada.
  
• Laurel Zuckerman's Paris Weblog doesn't have as tight a focus, but she doesn't shy away from hot topics, she embraces them.
  

You have no idea how hard it is for me to be sitting here blogging when I just received an ARC of Jasper Fforde's new book, Shades of Grey. Can't wait to sink my teeth into that one. :)

But first I'm off to learn some Romani dances at Sonoma State University taught by Sani Rifati of Voice of Roma.

World Fantasy Convention is this weekend. I can't wait! I'm going to try to post a couple of times from the convention. I'm also going to line up authors for interviews for the next six months.

If you read the interview with Jennifer Brozek in the previous post before the review of Grants Pass was live, it's up now at SFReader. Grants Pass is an anthology of post-apocalyptic tales edited by Jennifer and Amanda Pillar. It was a deliciously dreary collection of complicated people dealing with the aftermath of plague and quakes.


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Shifting writing gears

I've spent most of my allotted blogging time today on upgrading the blog. Adding more buttons for your bookmarking pleasure and added more links to my blog roll. SEO is a never-ending struggle. The good news is that SFOO is popping up all over the place. And since the blog is taking off, I'm going to devote more energy to it and quit some of my other myriad things I'm involved in to keep it current and vital.

I have author interviews with Allen M. Steele and Peter F. Hamilton scheduled for this month. My author interviews will always post on Fridays, but not (yet) every Friday.

Last weekend I cleaned the clutter in my house and it seemed to do wonders for the clutter in my brain. I had two new story ideas on Saturday. I finished the first draft of the flash piece and got a good start on the longer one on Sunday. I even managed to work in the credit card industry in answer to a co-worker's challenge. (I work for a trade journal for said industry by day.)

I also made a pivotal decision regarding my sequel to Awesome Lavratt. I'm going to write it in stand-alone chunks and submit them to mags. You won't have as long to see what Horace gets up to next and I'm hoping that will keep the same punch that Awesome Lavratt had when I wasn't trying too hard.

Please tell your friends about the new and improved SFOO blog, add me to your blogrolls, bookmarks, feeds, etc. Check out the new options on the right. Even new places to vote me up. :)

I'll be blogging over at Redwood Writers this week on Flash Fiction, complete with oodles of places to submit.

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My blog made a top SF blog list!

I love lists. I love making them and ticking things off of them. But best of all is making it onto a "best of" list!

A brand new blog, Distance Learning Net, loves making lists, too. My blog is listed among 15 other general SF blogs on the blog's top 100 science fiction blogs list. There are also categories for movies, TV, books, reviews, etc.

Come follow me

If I have any friends out there that aren't completely saturated with web 2.0, or is it 3.0 now?, social networking and SEO (search engine optimization), here's another thingy for you. Google Blogger now has a "followers" feature. If you're following someone's blog and they have turned on that function and checked the "show my followers" box, then your little pic or avatar will be on their website.

Why should you want to do this? It's more cyber real estate, of course. So all you bloggers who use Google's Blogger, aka blogspot blogs, come follow me. :) And I'll return the favor if you have a similar site or one that interests me.

While musing over an article for work yesterday, I made an interesting observation. It was about resolving personal conflict. What struck me as I sat staring at the screen trying to come up with a list of meaningful bullet points was this:

People struggle with each other over seemingly trivial matters because of their need to be:

right
in control
validated
noticed

Have I missed anything?

Another observation that I made is that the things that we're not supposed to talk about at the dinner table: money, politics and religion, are the very same things wars are fought over. Those and power, which translates into land and conquest on the grand scale and meddling on the personal one.

I'm having fun with Horace. He's the (first) main character in Awesome Lavratt. He's the main character in a sequel I'm working on now. I have so much fun making him squirm. Poor guy...

I'm almost finished with the fantasy novel, Shadowbridge, by Gregory Frost. I'll probably have it finished tomorrow. I'll be reviewing it at Mostly Fiction along with its sequel.

Next up is editing a ms for a friend and critiquing more of same for OryCon. I got a picture of myself holding my book yesterday in the mail. I had completely forgotten about it. Joe Collins took pictures of the authors in attendance at SpoCon and sent us a copy to keep and a copy to sign and return. And a third copy goes up on a wall at U of W. Pretty cool.

"The Heist" up at EDF

"The Heist" is the story that tried to be funny AND suspenseful. I had to pick one or the other. I chose suspenseful and rewrote it. A couple of rejections confirmed what my gut was already telling me: that I chose wrong. I rewrote it as funny flash and it was published by the first mag to which I sent it. Find it now at Every Day Fiction.

A fantasy writing friend of mine over at MySpace gave me a lead on a little item you may have noticed in my right-hand side bar. It's Blogrush. It helps generate more traffic to your blog. Like Google's Adsense, it looks for similar products. It's like swapping links without doing a thing. If you sign up, be sure to use the link below because I get even more traffic for referrals. It's easy, free, and so far, I've seen no downside.

Heres the link: http://www.blogrush.com/r17116443

I updated my appearance schedule. They're all Sonoma County events in June and July. Unless I get a windfall and can afford to go to another Con. Going as a guest pays the entrance, not the travel and lodging. And hubby is still on workman's comp. I may even have to go back to the work force. Ugh!

I've also added links to all the other places that I can be found on the web to my bio page on my website. And I've added a sell sheet for Awesome Lavratt to the Lavratt page.