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This VideoSong is about Dickens! And books! And outer space! And music! Watch it; it made me very happy. (thx, Jan)

29 Epir | Osijitz, Arko

Dear Mamin:

I think I am starting to get what they called in Emotional Healing class, depression. It often seems to me that the world has turned evil, and I hate my life. I try not to think of it, I try just to do my work, think of the patients and the medicines, see the beauty of the sky and of nature, remember the good things. But the bad things flood in and the good things turn distant. That description of the feeling of everything being dark or black is very accurate.

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The powers of observation.

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* * *
Katherine
* * *

He is all around me, a cool current in a sun-warmed river, and he tastes of the ocean and mystery and oh by the stars what am I supposed to be doing--

Just as suddenly, 'Sy is there, a fire before the flood. The feel of his skin on my back gives me a point of reference, and I'm remembering. I'm here to dive, and as I feel 'Sy reach past me

and feel his fingers curl through those silk-black locks, pulling his head away from mine and grinding into his

dammit I need to concentrate

I find a small opening and dive.

I'm standing in a cool fog, my toes splashing in the thinnest sheet of water. It covers everything, and below the reflections of the stars, I see veins of silver running through deep indigo ripples. I feel the urge to follow one of those ripples, and move as quietly as I can through the mists.

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MyStory is location-aware fiction, written by Barry Dickins, Tony Birch, Cate Kennedy and Matt Blackwood. Fascinating idea, and a lot of work to get the places around Melbourne just right.

“She’s surprised at the coincidence,” Mary said quickly. “That guy you were talking about is a friend of ours named Nick.

“Oh holy crap really? You know him? Be honest with me does he already have a girlfriend or is he just playing the field?” Bubbles asked.

“Him? Really? Him?” Alice said.

“Yes, she’s talking about our friend,” Mary assured her. “Such coincidences do happen. And Bubbles, he is still single to the very best of my knowledge.”

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The room they went into, along with two or three aides each, held sound in enough that I couldn’t hear words, but I heard their voices rising once or twice. Oh, to be a fly on the wall. Most likely they were arguing over their chances of holding us off long enough for reinforcements to arrive. I would have liked to be part of that argument, but of course they were inclined to disbelieve all I said.

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Simon Winder has a beautiful retrospective on Penguin’s Great Ideas series of books, recently ended.

This isn’t related to web fiction, but I’d thought I’d share a little tip I use to keep my writing secure – regardless of whatever terrible things that may happen to my primary computer. I was on Twitter today, and writer Zoe Whitten posted a couple of tweets on how her machine crashed on her, and with it – two months of writing lost in temporary hell.

There are two things to remember here. The first is that – if you’re reading Novelr, it’s very likely that you already do most of your writing on your computer. The second thing, worth remembering, is the simple truth that computers are fragile creatures and should always be treated with the assumption that something, somewhere, would go catastrophically wrong; that your work is always at risk of vanishing, and if you so forget about your computer or lose it or drop it or have your board fry itself or have your hard disc spin to death – any of these things may happen at any given time, sending your writing straight to a unknowable purgatory.

It pays, of course, to have backups. If you’re on a Mac, get SuperDuper!. But backups aren’t ideal when you’re writing and your computer crashes and you just want to get back to work: they’re a hassle to do, and it takes quite a bit of discipline to backup on a regular basis.

The simplest solution to this is to get Dropbox.

Dropbox gives you a little folder, in which you dump the files you want to save. And when you’re connected to the Internet, Dropbox syncs your files with all the other computers you have with Dropbox installed. (Plus they give you a web interface to download and use those files, should the need ever arise.)

See the value in this? I use Dropbox as the holding space for whatever document I’m currently working on. I keep backups of my whole hard disc, of course, but if my computer fails or if I’m away I get to download and work on my working drafts – either through the web interface, or via the selection of mobile devices currently supported by Dropbox (i.e.: Android, iPhone, iPad and Blackberry).

There are other uses, of course. Some of my friends drag and drop .pdf ebooks into their Dropboxes, for reading on the train. Others use Dropbox to share pictures with friends. And if you have your writing organized in a different part of your computer, just follow these steps to have Dropbox sync those folders too.

Dropbox is great as a storage trick, for the few documents you want to protect most. It’s small, it’s simple, it’s easy-to-use, and (best of all) it’s free. Get it at dropbox.com, set it up, and then get back to writing today.

William Gibson on Google:

Science fiction never imagined Google, but it certainly imagined computers that would advise us what to do. HAL 9000, in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” will forever come to mind, his advice, we assume, eminently reliable — before his malfunction. But HAL was a discrete entity, a genie in a bottle, something we imagined owning or being assigned. Google is a distributed entity, a two-way membrane, a game-changing tool on the order of the equally handy flint hand ax, with which we chop our way through the very densest thickets of information. Google is all of those things, and a very large and powerful corporation to boot.

Well written, and a fascinating (if detached!) look at the Google we take for granted.

Magic class was just as stimulating as it always was. It was impossible to fall asleep in this class, as Corrie had discovered on Monday; Professor Lal always noticed, and woke you up with pointed questions. Not that Dawn ever tried to fall asleep in class. Even if she had been that tired, the sight of Professor Lal’s true face, with its terrifying mouthful of sharp teeth, was enough to keep her alert.

That reminded her… she ought to give her aunt a call.

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That's right, Annabelle, John, Misi, Mamzelle and the gang are moving to Wednesday updates to make room for Intimate History updates every Monday and Friday! The History starts September 6th, 2010, and the Gulch returns September 8th. Mark your calendars, tell your friends!

“It’s just a matter of making the threat severe enough,” said Arzaktaj. “You go under the ivy branch, all polished and civil, and tell them that if they surrender you’ll let them go about business as usual and perhaps even make some civic improvements, and if they don’t, you’ll kill all the men, sell all the women and children into slavery and raze the place flat.”

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Ten minutes ago, I met you ...

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“So Alice and Mary, this is my roommate Larry, but we all call him L-Ray, and his best friend Steve. Steve doesn’t really have a nickname yet,” Bubbles said.

“And I cannot put into words how thankful I am for that,” Steve added.

“Just so I’m clear here, it’s Bubbles, L-Ray, and Steve?” Alice asked, a part of very much hoping she would be corrected.

“Unfortunately, yes,” L-Ray confirmed for her. “It’s nice to meet both of you.”

“Ditto,” Steve agreed.

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Set some time after the third book…. wherever it fits into the story I guess.

Terrifying Times

–––Night; Lyric–––

I'm about to scream, but I can't. If I do, he'll see me and I don't want that. It's very dark, but I can still see clearly. All I really see is the blood that's welling up from the throne and that half distorted shadow person that I can see so well. That dark fist rises, slowly, then suddenly clenches.

I wake with my hands over my mouth, that's the second time tonight. I'm not going to sleep like this. I'm too frightened.

I slide out of my bed and grab my slippers, then I double check that they match my nightclothes and the dressing gown that I'm about sliding on. I ease out of my room and into the hallway and then to the next door over from mine.

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I woke, panting. Niku was up on one elbow, looking down at me. “Were you making love to Kallijas in your dreams?” she asked me. It was before dawn, only half-light, and the night-candle was behind her, so I could not read her face.

“N…no,” I whispered.

“Skorsas? You were very obviously making love, and when you spoke it was in Arkan.”

“No, no… it was… it was this woman…”

She seemed to flinch all over. “An Arkan woman? Purified?”

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Edie was sitting in the classroom, checking her French homework for mistakes, for five minutes before anyone else even showed up. She hadn’t thought she was quite that early, but the clocks in the classrooms didn’t seem to be consistent with each other or with the ones elsewhere in the buildings. She suspected students of sabotage and teachers of counter-sabotage.

Zip plopped down in the seat next to Edie, breathing hard. Edie looked at her in surprise. “Were you running? You’re not late or anything.”

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12th Day Flower Moon, Year 300 AE
House of Wayaha on Coyote’s Way
City of Okmulgi, Aniyunwya Nation

wo young women lay entwined together in a platform that had not only a feather mattress but several plush furs padding the woven reed bed, colorful and beautifully woven blankets covered them as they slept. Both were lean and sinewy and dark skinned, had tattoos on their muscled arms, and had their heads shaved in the traditional warriors queue. They looked enough alike to be thought sisters if not for how they lay together.

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* * *
Elete
* * *

The ocean nips my bare toes. I notice it simply because it's better than noticing anything else.

The water this time of year is that deep, electric cold that, when it contacts your skin, has its own peculiar burning heat. As I stand there, my feet sinking into the wet sand, I watch the bare skin on top of my feet first turn a shocking pink, then a grayish-purple.

I don't have to wonder how it would feel to sink into that frigid surf, feel the ice close over my head and steal the air from my lungs. My wife remembered it for me as she died, and my daughter -- I am grateful that my daughter was unable to do the same. I have only my own imagination to tell the fine details of her demise.

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