<$BlogRSDUrl$>

So Much Stuff I Can't Recall

Thursday, January 31, 2008

First Sale o' 2008

A short story of mine, "A Thing about Spiders," has been accepted for publication at Fear and Trembling magazine.

Stay tuned.

Labels: ,


Mikesell : 6:00 PM : 2 snarky remarks

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

That Was Quick

Just finished the Jeopardy! online exam*. 50 questions. Up to 15 seconds each. Quite a few "huh?"s and several "I know I know that, but what is it?"s. Answered quite a few, though; most I think I got right. Time will tell.

Next step, if I passed, is to get my name drawn out of the hat when the roadshow comes to town. Pass that and it's interview time. Pass that and it's back to hoping my name gets drawn again, this time for the show.

Stay tuned.


*If you want to play along, there's time to sign up for the "West Coast" time zone exam, taking place tomorrow, January 31st.

Labels:


Mikesell : 8:17 PM : 1 snarky remarks

Friday, January 25, 2008

Jeopardy Odyssey

Those are two words darn hard to spell.

Also, they suggest what (I hope) will begin Wednesday, Jan. 30, and lead to a long and lucrative TV experience. Or a least a case of Rice-a-Roni (the San Francisco treat) and a copy of the home game.

That's right, I've signed up for the Jeopardy! Online Test. The East Coast test comes up Tuesday night, West Coast Thursday.

Join the fun.

Labels:


Mikesell : 7:38 PM : 2 snarky remarks

Thursday, January 24, 2008

LEGO-Rama

Phil got a membership to the LEGO Brickmasters Club for Christmas. Since then he's really wanted to get photos of his LEGO creations online or in the LEGO Club magazine. So I snapped some pix the other day (with a cool quilt as a backdrop) and sent a few to the LEGO folks.

They looked like this:

Labels: ,


Mikesell : 9:53 PM : 0 snarky remarks

Saturday, January 19, 2008

"Cameron's Next Religious Exposé" Redux

"Greeks Protest Cameron's Next Religious Exposé," the article I wrote that appeared in the Nov/Dec '07 issue of The Wittenburg Door, is now available as a feature on their website.

Lots of other good stuff in that ish. Subscribe.

Labels: , ,


Mikesell : 9:49 PM : 0 snarky remarks

Friday, January 18, 2008

CFBA: Christian Writers' Market Guide 2008

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is featuring the Christian Writers' Market Guide 2008 (WaterBrook Press) by Sally Stuart



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Sally Stuart has been writing for the last 40+ years, and has been putting out the annual "Christian Writers' Market Guide" for the last 23 years. Her other writing includes several Christian education resources books, a children's picture book, a basic writing text, writing resources, and a western novel--plus hundreds of articles and marketing columns. She writes marketing columns for the "Christian Communicator," "Advanced Christian Writer," and the Oregon Christian Writers' Newsletter. She speaks and teaches at Christian Writers' Conferences nationwide. Sally is the mother of three and grandmother of eight. She and her husband, Norm, spend their free time vacationing on the Oregon coast.

Check out her blog!


ABOUT THE BOOK:

The essential reference tool for the Christian writer, Sally Stuart’s Christian Writers’ Market Guide is now in its 23rd annual edition!

Check out the section on Blogging on page 69 ... the CFBA is listed!

Writers’ Conference listings, Book Publishers, Magazine Publishers, and a Bookstore filled with the resources you need to be successful in this business. Get a Book Contract or Manuscript Evaluation, and check out the Writer’s Resource links. This book has all you need to connect to all these valuable helps for the beginning, intermediate, or professional writer.


To keep you up to date with the latest marketing news, visit Sally Stuart’s new marketing blog, Christian Writers’ Marketplace, at http://www.stuartmarket.blogspot.com/.


A new, updated version of the Christian Writers’ Market Guide is available about January 15 each year.

Labels: ,


Mikesell : 4:08 PM : 0 snarky remarks

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Phil: Boy of Science

Tonight was the Science Fair at Phil's elementary school. Phil's entry dealt with what happens when you make significant modifications to one of his LEGO toys. It was his first time to participate in a science fair and he's happy with his participant's ribbon.

Here's a pic of the happy scientist.

In conjuction with the Science Fair, the school also had math and science activities for the kids to play. Among other things, Phil estimated area with Ms. Spencer, played a predictions game with Mrs. Wheeler (his teacher), and helped the blue eyes catch up with the browns (OK, not quite).

Next year we'll see if they lift the ban on explosives and Phil can enter his rocket engine-modified LEGO car....

Labels: ,


Mikesell : 8:07 PM : 0 snarky remarks

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Meeting Melody and Mike

(Yes, class, that's alliteration.)

Last night we drove out to Arlington to attend a book signing and reading by Melody Graves. Melody was one of the authors who appeared in the premiere issue of Coach's Midnight Diner, and she was reading a new short story and signing copies of CMD. The reading was well attended and the book sold well.

In addition to getting to meet Melody, I also got to meet another CMD author (and Dallasite), Mike Medina. Good times.

The Relief Journal website has more on the signing and an interview with Melody. Enjoy!

Labels: ,


Mikesell : 6:42 PM : 0 snarky remarks

Monday, January 07, 2008

The Return of Monday Nights

Much as I enjoy Heroes it's nice not having the middle of my evening interrupted by the tube. (Then again, things were getting darn interesting before the writers' strike halted production, so I'm gonna try to not get too comfy with my reclaimed 8-9p Central.)

Of course, new eps of Monk and Psych start up again this week. <sigh> There goes Friday...

Labels: , , ,


Mikesell : 9:18 PM : 0 snarky remarks

Sunday, January 06, 2008

2007: Reading and Writing

Around the end of summer, last year, I stopped logging the books I finished reading. I've done my best to figure out what I read, but still come up about five books short of my book-a-week goal. Here's what I read:
  1. Fight Club

  2. Unfortunate Events: The End

  3. Masterpieces in 3-D*

  4. Seventy Times Seven

  5. Germ (ARC)

  6. The Hard Goodbye (graphic novel)

  7. Trinity (3 of 3 - graphic novel)

  8. Batman Gothic (graphic novel)

  9. Deadline

  10. House of Invention*

  11. Coral Moon

  12. Lisey's Story

  13. Flannery O'Connor: The Complete Stories

  14. It's Not Funny if I Have to Explain It

  15. 10 Classics in 10 Minutes

  16. The Utter Zoo Alphabet

  17. Mystery & Crime (The NY Public Library Book of Answers)*

  18. The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower

  19. 24 Declassified: Cat's Claw

  20. Star Trek: The Modala Imperitive (graphic novel)

  21. Cell

  22. Tribulation House

  23. Unknown Man No. 89

  24. Teaching for Student Achievement Guidebook*

  25. The Complete Guide to Editing Your Fiction*

  26. The Crucible

  27. Broken Prey

  28. Elementary, the Cartoonist Did It

  29. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

  30. Of Mice and Men

  31. A Raisin in the Sun

  32. Napalm and Silly Putty

  33. Secret Window*

  34. Shutter Island

  35. Of Other Worlds*

  36. Art Masterpieces in 3D*

  37. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

  38. Iron Joe Bob

  39. Rising Stars (graphic novel)

  40. The Death of Superman (graphic novel)

  41. Firefly: The Official Companion - Vol. 1

  42. How Fiction Works*

  43. Coach's Midnight Diner

  44. The Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts

  45. Soul Circus

  46. The Pearl

  47. The Gashlycrumb Tinies

  48. *non-fiction; average pages per book: 266

I did manage to read a short story a week, making it through all 31 stories in the Dorothy L. Sayers anthology and 24 stories in The Art of Fiction (plus the short stories we read in class).

Although I did worse than recent years in the reading department, I more than made up for it with writing. 18 short stories and satirical "news" articles published, second-placing in the Genesis contest (opening pages of novel), two stories slated for publication this year (with another one or two in limbo). All that and upwards of $800 makes for a pretty good year for me.

How was your 2007?

Labels: ,


Mikesell : 4:36 PM : 4 snarky remarks

Friday, January 04, 2008

A Good Word for Dell

Although I'm an Apple guy, Dina is not. Neither. Not an Apple person, nor a guy. Go figure, but it works well for us. She has a Dell laptop, purchased last year, bit of an oversized monster, but it works. At least it was working until a few days ago when it stopped charging. Three guesses as to why: bad power cord/transformer; bad battery; bad AC jack on the motherboard. Optimist I am (not), I was expecting the motherboard jack had come loose; big repair bill equals most likely cause o' problem in my little world.

This afternoon we lugged her laptop and power cord down to the Dell retail shop at NorthPark Mall in Dallas. Friendly guy at the service counter took the power cord, plugged it in; little green light on the transformer box didn't come on so problem solved. Turns out it was still under warranty (even though we didn't have warrantee paperwork with us he looked up the laptop serial number in Dell's big database o' facts and verified the warranty info instead of laughing at us and our pathetic filing skills). So he got us a fresh power cord ensemble, plugged it into the wall (green light!) and Dina's laptop, and checked a BIOS setting to make sure it was charging (for which I'm grateful because in my little world just because one problem is solved at no charge doesn't mean there's not a second, more costly problem lurking out there, too). It was charging (Yay!), and we packed things back up and were on our way.

So, Dell support/service guy, thank you very much. It's nice to take a vacation from my little world every now and again.

* Dina had to go with a refurb-ed unit to get XP on it as Dell was Vista-only at the time; they've since come to their senses...

Labels:


Mikesell : 9:39 PM : 3 snarky remarks

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Oh Boy

(both the Buddy Holly and the Allan Sherman versions)

It's been a while since I've blogged. Not a lot happening other than our home being overtaken by LEGOs and books a'plenty for my birthday, Christmas, and (because its what my folks do to welcome the new year) New Year's Day.

And I'm into the O's now in my alphamabetical iPod quest.

Doesn't if feel good to be caught up?

And a Happy New Year to you, too.

Mikesell : 1:01 AM : 1 snarky remarks