ellenmillion | Entries tagged with links

We had milkshakes for breakfast, as one does occasionally. A little ice cream, some greek yogurt, milk, and frozen raspberries, all blended smooth. Mm!

It was so warm on Tuesday that things were melting like mad. Guppy asked to wear her sleeper instead of getting dressed, and then also wanted to go outside without her coat or hat. "I need cold hair," she explained. "I need mittens and boots, but no hat!"

We didn't stay outside long, but she found two sticks and had a grand time.

Elsewhere on the web:

A hilarious article about the phases of toddlers: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2015/02/18/what-they-didnt-tell-me-as-a-parent-kids-go-through-phases/

wyld_dandelyon is going a one-card draw in her journal: http://wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com/241290.html

ariestess is also! http://ariestess.livejournal.com/2174946.html

Rebelsheart, over on Dreamwidth, is looking for 24 writing prompts: http://rebelsheart.dreamwidth.org/1531922.html

Mobbing Midnight is an anthology of crow stories on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1869717111/mobbing-midnight-an-anthology-of-crows

Clockwork Queen of Oz, a new webcomic written by my friend Alex: http://www.theclockworkqueen.com/

Back at our house:

Having told Guppy not to rip the cover off the magazine, she assures me, "I want to rip it!"

"You can't rip it." Firm Mom voice. That will do the trick.

Guppy: "I'm going upstairs to rip it."

"No you're not." Even firmer Mom voice.

And she didn't. She shut herself in the bathroom and ripped the cover off while I was visiting some Utopian fantasy where she actually doesn't do what I tell her not to do.

She's just starting to add possessives to things. 'Mama's chair! Papa's chair! Guppy's* highchair!' she points out, several times a day. 'Bye bye, mama's chair,' she says when we go upstairs. She got a new chair for her birthday on Friday, just her size, and has been dragging it happily around the house. 'Guppy's chair!' she says gleefully.

She also loves macaroni and cheese, as many small monsters her age do. She calls it 'macacheeeee!' and will go the cabinet and find the box, bring it to me, and start collecting the pans for it, whether I was planning to make it or not.

The other evening, delightedly eating her orange noodles, she decided they were now 'Mamapapacheeeeeee!' All her favorite things in one.

I'll have bear photos later.

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In adorable things: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mcahogarth/the-laundry-dragons

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In other, less adorable, things, slammed with stuff to do. Excited about some of it. Less so, some of the rest of it. Woke up with Ideas.

*She says her actual name; Guppy is a nom de plume to give her a semblance of anonymity on the Internet.

I am not getting enough writing time. But other people out there are writing, and you should read it!

February is World Building Month, and

aldersprig is answering questions on the topic... as well as juggling a dazzling array of fascinating settings.

jemstone has entries posting on world building this month, too, and his serial, "The Widow Wore Gold" is updating. http://chromiumslurpee.tumblr.com/ (His previous serial is collected at this tag: http://chromiumslurpee.tumblr.com/tagged/NOWAB - read it all!)

ankewehner is updating flash fiction - see her archives here: http://ankewehner.de/fiction/index

haikujaguar is running a serial "An Heir to Thorns and Steel" at her blog.

baaing_tree has a prompt call here. (Until Wed!)

rix_scaedu has been posting a host of interesting serials.

kajones_writing is running a raffle in February. Her January round-up has links to a looooot of delightful fiction.

ysabetwordsmith is running a Torn World serial, "Squiggles", at this tag: http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/tag/squiggles

A Kickstarter for a set of urban fantasies by Laura Anne Gilman (aka

suricattus): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/980297055/sylvan-investigations-work-of-hunters-an-interrupt

ursulav is soliciting input on the opening chapter of something that may or may not turn into a thing with were-javelinas.

mizkit has posted chapter four of Magic and Manners: http://mizkit.com/cemurphy/shorts-and-more/magic-manners/chapter-four/

(If I did not mention you, that has everything to do with the fact that I am running on three braincells and the baby just woke up. If you're running a project, please feel free to link to it in the comments!)

The Kickstarter presentation yesterday went very well. I ended up changing my methods quite a lot mid-stream; I was anticipating a podium and formal speech (and had materials for that), and it was much smaller and more informal than I was expecting, so I tossed that and just went with the flow, which I thought actually turned out better. It was very organic and personal, and there were good questions throughout. I felt confident about my answers and experience, and everyone was very nice and friendly and interested. I should be able to polish up the speech I had written into a nice article with very little work - but I'm not sure what to do with it once I do. EMG-Zine would've been my first stop, but of course, that's ended! Any suggestions for a 'zine that might be interested in some Kickstarter Clues? The article would be about 4k words.

Am fairly beat today. Contractor has been and gone to install an air inlet at the back of the woodstove. Guppy has been up and running all over the place, and is down for a nap now. I love that she tells me when she's ready to nap with signs. No guess-work! Also, she likes very surprising food, like spicy pork and smoked blue cheese and mustard greens.

Got a little programming stuff done. Have started the next Torn World installment but my progress is too slow. TOO SLOW. Should be doing that now. Or art. Mostly, I am sitting here wanting a nap. NO NAP. *gets up and goes.*

Oh, I did remember the other link I wanted to post is a link to

mizkit's Last Days of Ancient Sunlight project entry at the Guinness Project. This part of the selection is straight-up popularity contest, and I think it would be super awesome to see it happen, so go vote for it once a day, if the description catches your fancy!

A gray morning, weather-wise. I had strawberry rhubarb ~~pie~~ soup-in-a-shell with bacon for breakfast. Guppy is moving toys from box to box and toddling around babbling with her sippy cup, occasionally demanding that I come admire her organizational skills or show her how to put the lid on something or read her a book. We're on reading 4602 of Farm Donkey this week. And it's only Tuesday.

I finally read through my Kickstarter presentation aloud last night. It's a tad on the long side, so I may go through and remove a few rambles before I give the speech tonight, and I'll want a clean copy with some highlights (I found myself skimming for numbers at one point) and a few of the longer paragraphs need broken up. I also need to compile my visual aids. I'm not bothering with slides, but I was going to pass around some copies of Dotminatrix and a binder with some art. Debating bringing some of my other titles for 'I'm not new to this publishing scene' cred.

In links:

I have a sketch up for auction on Facebook, starting at $1, here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151717772710100&set=oa.555384387836661&type=1&theater

Million Writer Awards are open for reader nominations now! Not related to me, but the name does amuse me. They are looking for fiction of 1000 words or more, first published on-line (through a magazine with "an editorial process", nothing "self-published") in 2012. I do have one (arguably) eligible story that might be nominated: Colors of Change

Alysha's Fall is a 10th anniversary print edition Kickstarter by

haikujaguar. Go fund some new illustrations for this edition - she's working on a stretch goal for new cover art!

I had other things I wanted to link to, but I've forgotten/lost them now. Guppy is down for a nap (it takes me most of a day to compile a blog entry these days!), so I've got to go get my materials together and eat some lunch and clean the disaster zone. Notice how calm and collected I'm pretending to be, like it hasn't been 10 years since I last did any kind of presentation...

From Seth Godin's blog today: You don't have to like new art, but it helps to understand it.

Looking at cleaning as a process, rather than a goal

Because It's All About Them - a story from my prompt, 'relativity and cats'.

Earthrise! I read this as it was serialized in

haikujaguar's blog and it hooked me. You can check out some of the sketches and painting she did for this, get the ebook, or buy it in print.

And to plug the same creator, if you are a creative business person and not already reading The Three Jaguars webcomic, start here, and consider donating or purchasing merchandise - this is

haikujaguar's least rewarding branch of business right now... and happens to be my favorite.

My rubber stamps at Katstamps are 30% off until the 29th!

Really awesome Wargods of Olympus miniatures Kickstarter.

That ought to keep you busy for a while.

Have a photo, and I'm out.

I seem to have a number of Velcro-Guppy photos to share lately. This is largely because the kitty is one of the few things distracting enough to keep her attention long enough for me to snap some shots. I have a LOT of blurry running-full-tilt-for-the-camera photos! Like this one:

(From cooler days. Today we are in as little clothing as possible. Tasty bait for mosquitoes, but more comfortable.)

Grocery shopping, post office and bread, all achieved. Dishes are still stacked up and lunch is next on the checklist, but Guppy is just down for her nap, and I'm updating my Kickstarter project with the next Big stretch goal:

A mini coloring book! It will be a very limited print edition - only those copies sold through the kickstarter +10, and it will only happen if the Kickstarter gets to $3500. (Which I would've told you was nuts when we started, but now it looks possible! Not guaranteed, not hardly, but possible!) I've also added several add-on options, including extra coloring book copies, and ACEO sets of Fantastrix AND Dotminatrix. How exciting is that?

Not, perhaps as exciting as the Digger Omnibus Kickstarter. WOOT!

ursulav, you're a rockstar!

14 Sea Monsters done! Mwahahaha!

Congratulations to

dandelion_diva, who won our last drawing for a free print. You will have your choice at the end of the project, when all of the prizes and originals are mailed.

That means, it's time for another poll... this one will be monster versus monster! I will pit the top two contenders against each other in grisly mortal battle, then the next two, and so on. I do reserve the right to skip a monster if they are from vastly different climates or wouldn't ever be in conflict for any reason.

[Poll #1912878]

We're still $5 from our first stretch goal. Just $5 and you get an awesome article, 'When Sea Monsters Attack!' You know you want to support this project! I am going to end this when I get them all finished - which means six more monsters, or only a few more days at my current rate, so don't dawdle. :)

I'm also working on a Kickstarter campaign for my next coloring book... and my biggest hurdle right now is a name. I liked 'Dotminatrix', but I've seen Moms do a double-take at the title at the fair before, and as clever as it is, I fear it may... er... make certain promises that it doesn't deliver. Yes, it's a coloring book for grown-ups, but it's not THAT kind of coloring book and severely lacks in whips and blindfolds. So. I need a good catchy name that covers the kind of general fantasy and science fiction stuff that I do. A little dramatic romance, some big furry unicorns, big ice spiders with door-to-door salesmen, angels, demons, a sea monster in a tree after a flood. You know... some kind of awesome title that implies all of that and makes me sound amazing. Then I can lay out the cover, finish the video and launch this sucker.

So, this has gone viral today: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html - it's a very long comic, very crudely drawn and rude in several places... but so full of truths and feels that it deserves the attention it's getting. I don't usually link to things that have already shown up all over my friendslists... but that's a good one and it gets me right in the gut.

Bread is rising, and I'm waffling between doing a sea monster card and working on the sea monster in the tree. (ETA: playing with demanding baby won... it's hard to resist giggly baby pushing a toy at you!) I got a little writing done this morning before Guppy woke up, and have nearly polished off the next SmN installment. I got a bunch of programming done yesterday, and have some more to tackle this afternoon during Guppy's nap.

Guppy is showing signs of wearing out, only a little early for an afternoon nap that is beginning to show signs of being on an actual, factual schedule. She woke up last night after I'd been asleep maybe an hour. I only gave her water and told her to go back to sleep... and she didn't particularly like that answer, but she only complained for about 10 minutes, and it was a descending 10 minutes, getting less and less angry until it was just the tiniest mutter, followed by blissful silence. Jake slept right through it. She woke again a few hours later, but didn't fuss long enough for me to get out of bed... even if I hadn't steeled myself to be all hard-hearted about things in the interest of going back to sleeping through the night.

It's still warm and melty, thank goodness. I took this photo yesterday using the panorama feature on my phone. I couldn't see the screen at all - it was way too bright, so I had to cross my fingers that it was working.