My husband and I are fans of KINGS, the sort-of sf show on NBC that reworks the Bible story of David.  On last week's episode


SPOILER







King Silas tells David Shepard he has to go out on what's essentially a suicide mission to earn the right to court Princess Michelle.  I turned to Howard and said, "I liked the original better".

On KINGS, David Shepard has to retrieve a stolen national treasure.  In the Bible, King Saul sent David on a different suicide mission.  The bride price for Saul's daughter Michal was 100 Philistine foreskins.  David returned with 200, and dumped them at Saul's feet.

It would have been much more interesting on KINGS if they'd stuck to the original storyline.

I now have my (or rather, Darlene Marshall's)  preliminary schedule for Anticipation, the World SF Convention in Montreal, Canada:

Researching Your World
Description: A discussion of research techniques and pitfalls for writers; what are your best sources and how do you know whether information on the internet is accurate?

Sat 5:00 PM
All Participants: Aliette de Bodard, Darlene Marshall, Erick R.
Buchanan, Hal Duncan, Mindy Klasky


Ebooks from draft to final product
Description: The process of writing an ebook from the idea to selling
it to publication and marketing to collecting those royalty checks.

Sat 10:00 AM
All Participants: Anne Harris, Darlene Marshall, Kathryn Sullivan,
Traci N. Castleberry

I hope to see many of you at Worldcon!

"Thinking Outside the Book"

That quote is the slogan of the Alachua County Library District, and yesterday I got to see that kind of thinking in action. We now have a Library Partnership, not quite a branch, but something new. The Library Partnership is a storefront facility in an underserved and socioeconomically at-risk part of town. In addition to all the library services--books, Internet access, other media, the partnership works with over 20 social service agencies to help people.

This is a very exciting concept, and part of what I love about 21st C. public libraries. People who need library services the most will get them, but they'll also be able to work with agencies that provide job training, educational opportunities, wellness programs, all at the same one-stop site. This could be a whole new trend for public libraries, and I'm watching it with a great deal of interest.

Truly, no one is safe while the legislature is in session.  According to the Florida Library Association, all state funding of public libraries has been cut from the proposed budget.  Here's the story, and the people to contact:



Budget Conferees Agree to Eliminate State Aid - Action Needed Now



The Florida Legislature TED Conferees met last night (Apr 30) and agreed
to eliminate State Aid to Public Libraries funding completely from the
state budget for the coming year.



The Florida Library Association will be contacting Governor Charlie
Crist later today, asking him to intervene, to try to persuade
legislative leaders to find a way to fund the program at the $21.2
million level.  We will be providing press releases to Florida media
outlets.  With the budget process on track to end Sunday, the Florida
library community has about 48 hours to get legislators to change their
minds.



Help get out this message -

Elimination of State Aid to Public Libraries funding will force the
closings of library branches around the state and have a particularly
devastating impact on rural counties.  Please find a way to fund this
critical program.



Here's who needs to hear the message -

*  Your Legislative Delegation - Tell them about how the elimination of
state funds for libraries will affect your community. Ask them to go to
the House and Senate leadership and insist that they fund State Aid.


*  The Governor's Office - Tell his staff the story. (850) 488-7146 /
Charlie.Crist@MyFlorida.com <mailto:Charlie.Crist@MyFlorida.com>


*  House Speaker & Senate President

o   Larry Cretul, Speaker of the House - District includes parts of
Alachua, Levy, Marion counties. larry.cretul@myfloridahouse.gov
District (352) 873-6564 / Tallahassee (850) 488-1450

o   Jeff Atwater, Senate President - District includes parts of Broward
and Palm Beach counties.  atwater.jeff.web@flsenate.gov  District (561)
625-5101 / Tallahassee (850) 487-5100

Guess I'm not trading in my 2004 Sebring Convertible for the new model.  Dang.  I like my Sebring.

Today's my first morning to be at Classic 89/Nature Coast 90 for the Spring Membership Campaign.  You can listen via the amazing interwebs, and you can even send money through the tubes!  And we wish you would!  And we'll give you stuff if you do!!!

So tune in from 6-9 EDT, and you'll hear me between segments of Morning Edition.  And even if you don't listen to me, if you listen to NPR, don't forget to support your local public radio station.  It only takes a minute, and it means a great deal to all of us.

I just finished reading this year's Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.  The writing was breathtaking, clearly the author is extremely talented and her characters leap off the page.  But my God, THESE PEOPLE ARE DEPRESSING! 

Why is it that so much "good literature" features people leading lives of quiet desperation?  Is it something the reader wants to identify with in some fashion?  Do we need to feel bad about the people we're reading about to feel good about ourselves?

I know people tell me that work like this is more memorable than genre fiction, but I swear, 10 years from now I'm more likely to be thinking about Miles Vorkosigan or Eve Dallas or Bob Lee Swagger or Merry Wilding than I am about the sad people in Olive Kitteridge.

However, I would recommend the book to any writer for the craft of the writing.  You can learn a lot from such a talented writer about making characters come alive for the reader, even if the story makes you long for a pirate ship to loom off the coast of Maine.

The husband and I are down in South Florida celebrating my baby brother's 50th birthday.  It's a good R&R trip for the two of us, and I didn't realize how much we needed this break until we got on the road. 

Last night we joined the family for supper at Sundy House in Delray Beach, an amazing resort property that combines historic buildings and lush gardens.  We dined under the stars, and finished off the evening with after dinner drinks on the veranda.  I felt a bit sorry we weren't staying at that property, but we were nearby on the ocean.  In fact, when I did a Google map search for directions to the restaurant from our hotel, I realized we could walk the 1.3 miles to supper.  Not only did I not need to worry about a designated driver, but we got to do some delightful window shopping through the quaint downtown Delray and beach area.

Today we're going for a boat ride on the Intracoastal Waterway.  There's the two of us and my brothers Mitch and Steven and their wives.  My other two brothers couldn't make this trip, but I'm glad those of us who could break away were able to do so.  The time we spend together as a family is fleeting, and I like to take advantage of it when I can.  

I'll be mentioning this again, but I wanted to get the word out that the guest for this year's Alachua County Library District Foundation Gala is NYT bestselling author Diana Gabaldon.

Gabaldon is the creator of the "Outlander" series and the Lord John Grey mysteries. She's also one of my favorite authors, and since I'm a member of the ACLD Foundation Board, I'm especially pleased to have her as our guest.

The Gala is May 17, and tickets are on sale now. Go to the ACLD Foundation website here for more information.

I had my physical today, and was officially pronounced "ridiculously healthy".  Lost four pounds since last year and built up muscle mass on my arms from the weights I carry while walking.  I don't expect the bloodwork to show anything different from last year, but then, that's why they run those tests.

That was the pronouncement I anticipated when I entered the doc's office, but it is a good feeling to have it confirmed.

It has been an absolute delight having the family together for Passover. There's a slight air of nostalgia at work too, since I'm not optimistic we'll be able to spend the full week together in the future.   The boys are grown men now, and will be going on their separate paths. 
( Read more... )

I'm sure the partying has been going on for hours, and the Victoria police have been called numerous times already to respond to the complaints of orgiastic revelry, but I wanted to be one of the first in the Northern hemisphere to say "Happy Birthday smofbabe !"

An ad for a financial services house says "[blank] can help you identify potential tops and bottoms" and you're thinking it means something completely different from what they meant.

I think.

"Today is Ada Lovelace Day, an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Women's contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognized. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Whatever she does, whether she is a sysadmin or a tech entrepreneur, a programmer or a designer, developing software or hardware, a tech journalist or a tech consultant, we want to celebrate her achievements."

I took the pledge to blog today about women in technology, so I'm going to write about Hedy Lamarr.  Most of the world knows of Lamarr as a movie actress of the 20th Century, but few are aware of her accomplishments as a scientist, accomplishments that were largely unacknowledged during her lifetime.  Lamarr is credited for her work with George Anteill on "frequency hopping", which, according to Wikipedia, "serves as a basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology, such as COFDM used in WiFi network connections and CDMA used in some cordless and wireless telephones."

Lamarr, who'd fled the Nazis to live in the US, wanted to join the Inventors Council during WWII, but was told she could better use her celebrity status as a sultry movie siren to sell War Bonds. She died in 2000, but her fame as an inventor is now spreading, thanks to the technology she helped create.

From the Ada Lovelace Facebook Page:

"Who was Ada?
Ada Lovelace was one of the world's first computer programmers, and one of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for doing sums. She wrote programmes for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, a general-purpose computing machine, despite the fact that it was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software."

"To woo a female dance fly into having sex, the male fly has to offer a nuptial gift, which is, ideally, a whole tiny insect or at least a silk-wrapped fragment of one.  The bigger the gift, the longer the copulation."

From Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes?--Bodies, Behavior, and Brains--The Science Behind Sex, Love and Attraction by Jena Pincott


I think it's the silk wrapping.  Who can resist?

I was reading today about the possible purchase of Sun Microsystems by IBM.  I've still got a  portion of my portfolio in Sun (Symbol: JAVA) stock, and I can't complain about it too much.  Selling some of that stock during the high point of the late '90's got my basis out (and then some) and financed my trip to Aussiecon in '99.  However, being a normal human being with an eye on the future, I'd be quite pleased if my Sun stock started going up again like it did today--doubling over yesterday.

What occured to me later when I was thinking about this was how when the dust settles I could end up owning both Apple and IBM shares.  I'm still a PC user, but it's always bothered me that I own Apple but don't own an Apple (though I bought one for my son and gave him some of the stock too).  I'll feel less conflicted about buying another PC/Notebook if I own IBM.  

I'm reading an entertaining and intriguing book: Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes? Bodies, Behavior and Brains--The Science Behind Sex. Love & Attraction by Jena Pincott.

Pincott talks about body language, symmetry, voice pitch, odor, height and all the various factors that come into play when scoping out potential partners. Some of it I knew, but some of it is new and fascinating, like how gay men may emit a different scent than straight men (and no, it's not about the products they're using).

As a romance writer I'm constantly trying to use body language, scent, sound and small things like whether or not the heroine is touching her hair to help set the scene. It's all part of showing without telling. But it's nice to have Pincott telling me why so much of this matters when people are making their choices to mate or not to mate.

Grab your red pen and make the world a better place!  It's National Grammar Day!

I was just thinking today that there ought to be a special word for the unique satisfaction that one gets when you realize you packed exactly the right clothes for a trip.  The Germans probably have a word for it.  Of course, my younger son would look at me blankly at this point.  If you've got a pair of sandals, a hoodie and your banjo, what more do you need besides the Phish t-shirt on your back?

I'm here, in my not-so-secret Darlene Marshall identity.  Say hi if you see me!