tasllyn

Felt like throwing my voice into the Dollhouse debate.

Here's my take on it.

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http://chipmacgregor.typepad.com/main/2009/02/critique-groups.html

I'm curious whether anyone here would be interested in being in an official online critique group for writers. I know several of us don't have time to write much. And I also know that a fair amount of us read each others' work here anyway. But I'm wondering if it could be beneficial to have a group meeting once a month or so to group together and focus on one or two pieces of work in real time.

Ideas on how it might work:

• Online chat room a la chatzy? I know we've had a general one for talechasing before
• forum?
• Possible MO: Two sign-up lists (one to critique, one to be critiqued), one or two ms to be emailed to everyone on the critiquers' list, to be discussed at the meeting.
• Other ideas?

If there is interest, here's some other things we might want to consider:

• What is the minimum/maximum number of people that we could do an effective critique with?
• How often would we want to meet?
• How many works would we want to discuss per meeting?
• Approximately how long should each work be?
• How do we accomodate time zones?
• Other considerations?

This is totally theoretical right now. I'm just trying to consider if it's realistic to simulate a face-to-face, regularly meeting critique group online, and what we would want from it if it is.

Sherrilyn Kenyon - Acheron

This is the description that came in my Borders ad e-mail. I like the idea of incorporating mythology. By the end of the blurb, I wasn't too sure, though...

Squeaky is planning to change hosting and must decide between two services. Please put your voice into the poll to help make the decision!

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Well, Vidya is very, very happy at the moment. (And Vidya is going to stop talking in third person before she slaps herself in the face.)

I went to Half-Price Books today. Not the one I usually end up going to because it's next to Fry's. The nice one on Lamar that's not as big as the the main one in Dallas, but is still pretty nice and big, and has an entire room devoted to rare and collectable books. The first thing that took my breath away - an advanced reading copy, hardcover, of A Game of Thrones - not sure if it was signed or not, as it was behind glass, but a lot of the books in this section were signed. The downside is - it was $500. I thin one of the weird things for me is that that book was responsible for my being in the store that day - I was looking for the books following A game of Thrones and The Phoenix Guards.

Other finds:
Several Anne Rice - 1st eds or signed - didn't really look too haard at these
Tigana - 1st edition and signed - $200
The entire Fionavar Tapestry - 1st edition and signed if I remember correctly - also $200 (probably a good thing it was sold as a set -  I don't have the last two which would have made that purchase very tempting.)
Two 1st edition Lord of the Rings in boxsets - one hardcover and one paperback. Justin found these first and wouldn't let me look at the prices. I think he was scared I would damage the books somehow.
1st edition leatherbound Pern Collection that had very pretty pictures and silver edging and a bookmark. I've gotten tired of the Pern series, but I did like those stories, and I'd probably have gotten it for the pictures. You know, if it hadn't been $100. Or $200. I can't remember which right now.

There were a lot of other beautiful books there, including artbooks, graphic novels, and some other books I really wouldn't have expected. If I get a job, I get the feeling that a nice chunk of my "celebration" money will be spent in that room.

( What I Actually Got )

And now, on to LibraryThing to catalogue my new purchases!!!!

I just finished this yesterday, and mainly my main review is: What are the other books in the Khaavren Romances, and how soon can I get them? (Don't want to go to Amazon right now, and I may see if I can get Justin to take me to Half-Price Books tomorrow when I'm practicing driving.

I'm not going into a full review (I burned my hand on my tea this morning, and typing does not make me happy at the moment), but I'm not sure most of the people reading this will need it, so here are the basics - It took me a little while to get into the book, mainly because of the writing style, and the fact that I haven't read anything in that style since high school. I think. Anyway, it took a little bit to get used to is again, but once I did, it was easy reading. I loved it! I will say nothing of the plot, setting, or characterization, because I didn't have any problems with it.

I think my favorite parts of this book were the two "About the Author" sections. Especially having Paarfi Roundwood(?) talking about Stephen Brust. ^_^

Go to careercruising.com, put in username nycareers, password landmark, take the career matchmaker quiz, post the top results.

( I should be a... )</p>

This is from an article in my Domestic Violence textbook:

"Only the rich and the poor were effected, and the rich only minimally."

Effected? Someone, please correct me if this is actually right. It's happened before that changes have been made to the English language without my realizing it before. But it really bugs me to see mistakes like this in any textbook, let alone a grad school level textbook. These are the books we're supposed to be learning from! I realize people make mistakes (God knows how many typos I overlook when I write) but I expect articles like this to have been edited several times, and you would think that at least one of those times, spelling and grammar errors would have been pointed out. I'm actually not sure whether I'm mad at this more for spelling or grammar. Spelling's normally my thing, but I think this one is more of a grammar-know-the-definition-of-the-word-before-you-use-it kind of thing.

well, I'm in the middle of my IP class, and we're still discussing copyright, so I decided to take a look at the website for the US Copyright Office, out of pure curiosity.

I don't remember if any of us are actually ready to register our works with the USCO (I don't consider myself ready until I've got at least a first draft if not a closer to final draft, and maybe more), but at the moment, they're beta-testing their online registration, and at least for the beta test, they're offering reduced pricing for online registration and submission ($35 instead of $45). Not sure if they'll keep the reduced pricing once the system is fully ready and online or not. I hope they do. But just in case anyone was up to it, I thought you might want to know. ^_^

http://www.copyright.gov/eco/beta-announce.html

What are they, you ask?

I don't know. My brain keeps screaming - NOT YET!!! NOT YET!!!

can't remember if I mentioned back in August that I've never felt so nervous about taking a standardized test before. Well, I can also say that I've never felt as nervous about actually looking at my test scores before, either.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

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Madeleine L'Engle, author of A wrinkle in Time

http://entertainment.msn.com/news/article.aspx?news=274750&GT1=7701

"Defective Yeti has invented a major improvement in CAPTCHA technology. Instead of reading the characters in an image to prove you're not a bot, you have to prove a little bit more . . . ."

This should be implemented everywhere.

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Mingle² - Dating Site

well, it's nearly 4 in the morning, and my head's decided thta it can't sleep. so I'm going to attempt to write instead. So let's see if something creative comes out of this or if I just keep staring at my laptop screen so long that my head decides to listen to my body saying that it wants to rest.

I didn't even take a nap today, so I don't know why I'm not tired. Maybe that green tea I drank was a lot stronger than I thought it was...

I AM
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Happy birthday, gridlockjoe!!!!!

Yep, I copied you... ^________________^