You know where I live sometimes? I live in databases. It was my job, when I had a job, and it's what I do as a volunteer. Today I ticked a box in a database to mark Jay Lake as deceased, and it hit me, as it hadn't really hit me until now, that Jay is really dead. It's not that I hadn't known it before, and it's not that I hadn't been sad about it ( Read more... )

Most of you won't care about this, but if you need to edit some messy data in text format or look closely at some long, tangled lines of code, Ian Mead's UltraEdit is the best. It's been a while since I've had to use it, but it's still the best.

And now, back to that messy data.

A few days ago, I got my copy of the March 2014 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction, with a story by Cat Rambo on the cover. Opposite the table of contents, there's an ad for this summer's Clarion West Writers Workshop, with instructors Paul Park, Kij Johnson, Ian McDonald, Hiromi Goto, Charlie Jane Anders, and John Crowley. It's a fine line-up ( Read more... )

If you have ever made your own lined drapes with formal headers, I now know that no one can possibly have properly appreciated your work. I applaud you. I don't even need to see the drapes you made in order to know that you deserve applause.

It is so often a good time to make a donation to the Carl Brandon Society for no particular reason.

Yesterday my inner four-year-old whacked off her hair with scissors, while my outer fifty-eight-year-old stood back and watched in horror. My inner four-year-old is more skilled with scissors than she used to be, so I still look mostly okay, particularly if you squint when you look at the right side of my head.

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Seattle's eccentric alternative weekly newspaper The Stranger recently referred to Clarion West as Fancy-pants sci-fi-minded writing organization Clarion West. Sponsor me in the Clarion West Write-a-thon, and I'll send you a pair of genuine Clarion West Fancy-pants, as seen in Jay Lake's LJ. Or sponsor someone else; there are 344 writers and one ( Read more... )

The United States of America celebrates its declaration of independence from Great Britain on July 4th every year. Every year, I celebrate by reading the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, by hanging a US flag from my porch, by watching a fireworks display, and by saying, "Happy Independence Day!" particularly cheerfully to anyone ( Read more... )

In honor of the 30th consecutive Clarion West summer workshop and the 10th Clarion West Write-a-thon, here's a challenge that's 30 times 10. Kate Schaefer (yes, that's me, talking about myself in the third person) and Karen G. Anderson have pledged a dollar a person each for everyone who participates in the Write-a-thon, up to 299 people/$299. If ( Read more... )

I'm at Corflu. Stu Shiffman is not at Corflu. I want to put together a one-shot fanzine for Stu, written here. I've promised to write an article for that one-shot before midnight tonight. I'm also going to ask people who make Corflu-related LJ entries ( like this one by Kate Yule) if I can scarf those entries for this purpose, to give Stu a ( Read more... )