n1ghtshad0w

Before I can mail out the prizes, I have to get more bubblewrap and mailing envelopes. I don't want your books to get mushed in the mail! But never fear, I've saved all the information, and I'll get them on the way ASAP.

I've been asked to be a guest blogger on the Penguin Books site. I just submitted an entry, about 800 words, discussing the roles women play in the Deverry books. I also of course took a swipe at the Celtic Golden Age myth of female equality.

When it's posted tomorrow, I'll post the URL here.

Imagine that money (or current ownership status) is no object.  You can have any Geoff Taylor cover illustration from the Deverry novels you wish--but only one!--to hang on a wall in your own home.  Which one will it be?

You can find them all at http://www.geofftaylor-artist.com/gallerykerr1.html   Just click on each cover to see the full painting.  [If you're an American reader who's never seen the UK editions, keep in mind that some of the titles are different too.]  Which one do you want for your very own, and why?

I've picked the Taylor covers because he has them so nicely arranged all on a single page so you can look at them all with just one more click.  Other cover artists for other editions include Paul Youll, Keith Parkinson, and Jody A. Lee.  You can Google for their work and check in their "galleries," "portfolios," and "fantasy" collections, but none of them have all their Deverry cover work as conveniently arranged for this question as Geoff Taylor does.

If you'd rather have a painting by one of those other artists, just answer the question by telling us which cover and who the artist is.

The hard part is picking just one, right?

( Well, it's easier than writing real content... )

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... because it is certainly not my intention ever, but I think I started someone down the path to atheism yesterday.

Admittedly, the conversation made me cry (I was talking to someone about dealing with a chronic condition, or rather, how he wasn't dealing with it. It rather pointedly reminded me of how I felt when I first was diagnosed with MS) but I think I gave him a good idea on how to start dealing with life again. The Spoon theory went down a treat.

But seriously, what do you say when someone asks you "don't you get angry at god sometimes?" In all honesty, I don't get angry, because I don't believe in a god or gods. I find that makes things a lot easier to accept. I don't have anyone to blame, and I have to let go of the anger. 10 years ago I used to believe in something... I didn't know what it was but I didn't think it was a god... just a something. I called it the universe. I was on the believers side of agnostic. But as I was searching for answers (doing all the woo-woo solutions because, what's the harm?) I quickly came to the conclusion that none of them worked. None. There was nothing out there, nothing in here, nothing linking us except the ideals of each other in our own minds. We exist because we exist. And you know what, I was ok with that. I decided from then on to make hay while the sun shined - and started training back at athletics. The Tomble had a lot to do with this because of his quiet and unending support of me.

So I told him an honest answer "I dont believe in god(s)" and when asked, I explained why, (tl:dr) I told him that not believing made accepting my situation so much easier. How can you stay angry when there is no one to blame? It just doesn't work and it blows over eventually. That doesn't mean to say I dont have my moments (I was pretty miserable this weekend, and that is spilling over into today, which made yesterday's conversation so much harder) but on the whole, I cope a lot better. And people comment on it.

So, if you ever wonder why I am so chipper and blase about my pretty shitful lot in life, that's why. There is nothing I can do about it, there is no one to blame, it is no one's fault: I still have to live my life. So I am going to try it until I decide I can't actually do it. This will mean a few failures along the way, and bouts of depression, and people thinking "I told you so" but I will not let anyone tell me I can't do something, if I think I can. Let me find that out for myself and just be there for me when I fail. I am a big girl, I can accept defeat on occasion.

http://madrobins.livejournal.com/374884.html

London in 1927. In colour. If you haven't seen this in Mad's topic, do take a look!

I had a good signing yesterday. Not a lot of people were there, but a lot of readers had ordered books for me to sign and the shop to ship to them, so it was successful all round. I read for about 20 minutes, I guess, from a section set in the Dawntime.

Afterwards H. and I went out to dinner with my agents at a nice Indian restaurant just up the street from the bookshop.

I'm a little wheezy today but not too bad.

I'm off to watch some more football!

ETA: grumble snarl growl wretched Alex Smith is just not real bright, let's face it, grumble snarl growl

( Well, it's easier than writing real content... )

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Congratulations three lucky contestants!

Our winner: James B. Prize: an autographed DAW Deverry hardback

Our first runner-up: Carol B. Prize: an autographed Deverry mass-market paperback

Our second runner-up: Laura D. Prize: an autographed Deverry mass-market paperback

Remember - contest #2 is open until November 10! You can submit an entry for this contest even if you submitted an entry for the first contest (except for the winner and runners-up - sorry guys, you three will have to make do with the prizes you've won!).

( Well, it's easier than writing real content... )

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ok, am dying for a hair makeover. and now my hair is finally long enough to drive me bonkers. (ok, actually its only a little longer than shoulder length but it POOFS like hermoinie and is SO UNBEARABLY THICK and hot!)

so.

i intend to bring a wad of cash to a stylist and get THEM to cut my hair for a change. and possibly perm it. and dye it.


help me choose a hairstyle? below are a few of my favs my concerns about those styles.



( help me choose a hairstyle! <3 )

http://www.sheridantighe.com/b2/index.php?p=3440&c=1

The BBS is back - telnet://dropbear.ath.cx or [[login|Login via web]]

LORD and BRE games going..

Anyone know any LORD InterBBS leagues still going?

We're setting Tuesday, November 10 as a day for The Arts meet Deverry.   We want you to know about this ahead of time so if you need to finish a project, or you need to borrow a digital camera to take a photo of your creation that you can easily upload, or whatever, you can get all your preparations done.

We'd like to see examples of your own creativity inspired by the Deverry series, such as:
   -original artwork in all media (drawings, paintings, sketches, cartoons, maps, sculptures, etc.)
   -a "Deverry" bookmark you made for yourself to use when reading a book in the series
   -poems, including limericks,
   -lyrics for filk songs
   -a costume you created to be a Deverry character for a party, convention, Halloween, etc.
   -needle arts (cross stitch, embroidery, etc.)
   -jewelry items
   -jokes or puns that only readers/fans of the series would "get" 
   -just about anything you made because you wanted something with the look and feel of Deverry about it ("Deverry" is used here to mean "the world of Deverry and all its cultures")

We also hope to have you share with us
   -links to Deverry-inspired artwork at various artists' (professional or amateur) web sites
   -links to commercial music inspired by or reminiscent of Deverry

What doesn't qualify:
   -fan fiction or links to fan fiction
   -poems or filk song lyrics about "new" characters or "new" stories set in Deverry (that's fan fiction)
   -anything that is not your own creation which you do not have its creator's permission to post here
   -jokes that begin with something like "A silver dagger and a dwarf walk into a tavern in Cerrmor...," but have nothing else about them that makes them "Deverry"
   -if you bought it instead of making it (costumes may be assembled from a mixture of made and bought parts)
   -posting a video from another web site (YouTube, etc.) to the deverry15 community unless it is a video you made

Questions about The Arts meet Deverry can be asked here in comments.  If you'd prefer to ask less publicly, you can send an LJ private message to me at my username (french_teacher).

The Deverry cycle's timeline, in the course of fifteen books, winds its way over 1000+ years of history, Deverrian and otherwise, and laces together the incarnations of a great many characters. But even in fifteen books, not every story could be told.

So my question to deverry15 is this: what are the Deverry stories that were _not_ told, that you wish could have been? I'll start off by posting my own top three in comments (not including the one that would currently be a spoiler).

Open November 6 to 10. Winner and runner-up will be announced on November 11.

Anyone, anywhere in the world, can enter. Note the dates! Entries that are submitted outside these dates will not be reviewed.

Short essay (50 words or less)
Winner gets an autographed hardback DAW edition of a Deverry novel
Runner-up gets an autographed mass market paperback of a Deverry novel

1) Email your submission to deverry@deepgenre.com with the subject header Contest. Only one entry per person - duplicate entries will be disqualified.

2) In the body of the email, put your full mailing address (snail mail). Without that, we can't consider your entry.

3) Write a short essay (50 words or less) in which you talk about your favorite Deverry timeline. The essay should also be in the body of your email, not an attachment.

Your essay can be funny, serious, satirical, angry, or entirely straightforward. It's all good. There is no hidden agenda.

4) The Deverry Contest Committee will review entries and select winners. The winner and runner-up will be notified by email, and can select the title they would like to have autographed.

Almost by accident I have stumbled across a grand scheme to revive Proto-Indo-European, a.k.a. PIE, as a common language for the European Union.

http://dnghu.org and then http://indo-european.eu are two good starting point websites.

No, I'm not making this up.

Nor am I seriously advocating this revival. I am merely fascinated by the Don Quixote flavor to the attempt. Indo-Europea linguistics are a hobby of mine, as regular readers of this space know, but it had never crossed my mind that it might have practical applications. In fact, I was just remarking to la_marquise_de at WFC that I love PIE studies because they are so meaningless. Well, meaningless no more! This is definitely several steps up from those groups that speak Quenya or Klingon in rigor though probably much less fun.

The advocates point out that back in the 1800s no one would have believed that Hebrew could be revived as the speech of a living nation, but with Israel we're talking about a much smaller, highly motivated, and reasonably uniform population compared to the vast and heavily populated reaches of Europe, including Western, Middle, and Slavic-speaking nations, all the way from Ireland to Siberia, really.

And of course, PIE is a reconstructed language. It's likely that scholars have gotten it mostly right, but there are no guarantees that any given word or bit of grammar ever existed. What's more, it's extremely complicated, with more cases, voices, tenses, and inflections than Greek, Sanskrit, or Latin. (Which some here are probably thinking were bad enough.)

Its advocates know this, but they certainly have a point when they say that the EU needs a common language. There are a lot of people, particularly students with the time to worry about such issues, who resent the fact that the common language that's emerging by default is English with strong overtones of American English at that. Still, I'd say that the parallel campaign to just go back to idiomatic Latin has more chance to succeed -- and alas, it doesn't have much.

I'm thinking of the kind of scene which is not a big plot resolution or a major event worthy of being included in a 50-word summary of the plot of a particular novel. But it is a "gem" of a scene because you have always remembered it quite distinctly, or if you are one of those who re-reads the novels, you always enjoy it each time you get to it.

It might be a "gem" because of the precision of description which has always allowed you to see it clearly in your mind's eye, or it might be the way in which two or more characters happen to interact with each other in a very short space of time such as in a single conversation, or it might just be something about the scene which simply resonates so well with you on a number of levels.

If you have such a "gem" of a scene from somewhere in the Deverry series you probably remember it well enough to describe it in a few sentences so that other readers will recognize it. ["Nevyn and Jill were talking and ..." is probably not precise enough.] If you can identify the book in which the scene occurs, so much the better.

What I'm asking you to do is to thank Kit for this scene which you consider to be a "real gem."

Maybe you can come with more than one such "gem." I know I can, even though the one I am going to use to start this off is the one I'd put at the top of my list. I'd like to see both how many different scenes we can compile here to thank Kit for and how many people find the same scene(s) to be "gems."

Over on DeepGenre, a discussion of writing, creativity, and the brain.

I was chatting to amythest_dragon about the 50 word essay and idly started to put together some lines, then more lines and ended up with this:

Poor Salamander, so much responsibility,
Is it any wonder that you chose to flee.
Finding fun and laughter far from scornful eyes
Making truth ridiculous so it seems all lies.
But dweomer is a path for life it cannot be ignored,
Or given up upon a whim when practice makes you bored.
Taking from the powers without any giving back,
Is it any wonder your mind found ruin, pain and wrack?
Come back to your teachings - it is not to late.
The path is yours, the choices yours - do not think it Fate.
For Fate is a patient mistress and the wheel of time will turn
If not in this then in the next your life lessons you will learn.

Of course that was too long, so I thought How about a shorter form

There was a half-elf Salamander
Whose lines of witty gay banter
Gave way in time
When he lost his mind
And had to admit Jill was right with some candour.

After a while I realised that you couldn't do a Salamander poem without using "Sing a song of sixpence" as a blueprint.

Sing a song of Salamander
A pocket full of coin
He trained to be a wizard
Then didn’t wish to join
When his mind went wandering
And his wife began to sigh
Dala was heard to curse aloud
“You damn chat’ring magpie”

Of course being me by the time I was done the comp was over:-( but I thought I may as well pop them on the deverry15 page anyway