Reality Skimming

One day in the Nursery Chibby by Mel F.

2008-05-11T14:50:00.003-07:00

Mel recently gave me some "chibbie" art -- which is a sort of anime style -- featuring characters in Righteous Anger. I'm puttering at getting it up in the gallery whenever she's around to supervise my work in photoshop doing the coloring. She has also agreed to take on the organizing for a student art show at the launch for Book #3: Pretenders, September 30, 2008, at the Prince George Public Library. Go Mel. One less thing for me to worry about as I slog away at porting titles with some help from First Expansion friends.

Archives Fixed for Reality Skimming

2008-05-11T14:40:00.002-07:00

Permissions! Arg! After an hour of trying to figure out why Blogger cannot update the master archive file on my website, which means wrestling with the new-improved-even-an-idiot-could-use-this GUI interface for file management where one can no longer type "chmod 777" to solve problems, and trying to grasp the connection problem on the blogger end when the only blanks to fill in look correct and there's no way to get under any hoods ... I gave up and discovered I could edit the $!@#$ file in Dreamweaver, manually, and upload it with my WS_FTP client. So I did. And the archives for the Reality Skimming blog are available once more!

Cover Art for Horth Novella by Bowlsby

2008-05-06T08:20:00.003-07:00

Messing around with photoshop, pictures and sketches by Richard Bartrop to find a cover for Craig Bowlsby's novella of Horth Nersal in Killing Reach serving in Liege Bryllit's fleet. Here's some eyes I think would do for Horth, slightly doctored in photoshop.

Lynda's upcoming events updated

2008-04-30T07:09:00.001-07:00

SF/F Writers Who Blog

2008-04-30T06:59:00.002-07:00

Thanks to SF Signal for adding Lynda to their list of Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors who Blog.

Thank you from Rita McInnis

2008-04-29T07:34:00.003-07:00

Received a lovely "thank you" from Rita McInnis of DP Todd Secondary School about the visit David and I made there on April 24. PS I love her tag line - Live each day to the fullest!. It's good advice. Thank you for having us Rita!

Notebook from Mel

2008-04-29T06:37:00.003-07:00

Mel gave me this notebook to capture thoughts about the Okal Rel Universe. I would sketch in it, too, but I don't draw like Mel does. :-) The anime-style chibby of Amel on the cover is actually a separate picture we applied with Photoshop and some editing help by Tegan to remove the lines of the ruled paper Mel drew the original on. I have a bunch more chibby from Mel to get into the gallery and she is keen to do some interviews with characters for the podcast I keep threatening to set up.

April 24 2008 DP Todd Secondary School

2008-04-27T12:07:00.004-07:00

Much thanks to teacher Rita McInnis-Ryan, David Lott, student Nicole and other volunteers who helped connect students at D.P. Todd Secondary School with the Okal Rel Universe Thursday, April 24, 2008. David Lott helped me set up, modeled the Ann T-Shirt and put up a page for the April 24 2008 Visit to DP Todd. We had a reading by Nicole (center in picture) and some mock duels as well as slide shows, questions and a book giveaway to students interested in doing art, skits, dress up or otherwise strutting their own interpretations of the ORU for the launch of Book #3, Pretenders, in September at the Prince George Public Library.

On the EDGE podcast - April 2008

2008-04-19T14:23:00.003-07:00

I am interviewed by Marie Bilodeau on this week's On the EDGE. There'll be more coming in the podcast realm from the ORU, so sign up to the EDGE podcast using your favorite podcast aggregator. In this interview I talk about the origins of Okal Rel in my disgust at the cold war mentality, the character Horth Nersal, and the theme of opportunism vs. integrity in Righteous Anger.

April Edition of Ray Gun Revival Launched

2008-04-18T06:28:00.002-07:00

Anne M. Stickel of the First Expansion (ORU) is also on the editorial staff of Ray Gun Revival. To quote Johne Cook of Ray Gun Revival, "Anne Stickl is our copyeditor extraordinaire". I second the sentiment.

RA in Barnes and Noble Catalog

2008-04-16T08:42:00.003-07:00

Thrilled to see Righteous Anger in the Barnes & Noble catalog snag on my google alert for Okal Rel ... but shed a tear to see they haven't got the cover art in yet. Sigh. Being an author is so "emo" as my kids might put it. :-)

Lynda Williams to Judge West End Writers Contest

2008-04-07T06:47:00.002-07:00

At the invitation of club rep Daniel Archambault, Lynda Williams has agreed to act as judge of the West End Writers 19th Annual Contest. Lynda will present the award to the winning enty Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at the awards ceremony at Barclay Manor.

Contest details: $200 First Prize, $100 Second Prize and $50 Third Prize
This year, Poetry and Prose will be judged together.
Submission Deadline - Thursday, May 15th, 2008. For more information, see contest page on the West End Writers homepage.

Kristin C. Ft. St. John

2008-04-07T05:39:00.005-07:00

A snip of an e-mail exchange with Kristin C. of Ft. St. John, who was one of two participants in Dr. Marian Scholtmeijer?s class ENGL 486, Literature of the Fantastic, who received copies of Courtesan Prince after my guest appearance by audio conference, March 29. I enjoyed an exchange of e-mails with Kristin after and obtained her permission to blog a "slice of life" snip from one. :-) A book also went to Harold Feddersen. Much thanks to Marian and her students for having me as a guest to discuss identity issues in Courtesan Prince.

March News

2008-04-01T07:04:00.002-07:00

Surf to the Edge website for some audio clips of me answering questions. Working on making them shorter and shorter, like beads on a necklace. Many beads still amount to something substantial but each is more accessible. My way of simultaneously bowing to and rebelling against the sound-byte phenomenon.

I was a special guest in Dr. Marian Scholtmeijer?s ENGL 486, Literature of the Fantastic, class on March 29. Had a good time. Give away copies of Courtesan Prince are being sent to student participants Kristin C. and Marold Feddersen. Next event I'm looking forward to is appearing in Rita McInnis-Ryan's enriched English class at D.P. Todd Secondary School, in April.

First Expansion mailing list still down due to port to new hardware by the ORU's hosting service. My husband and webmaster David Lott is in Vienna on a special trip to see old friends, so I won't be able to fix or re-construct until he gets home.

Heard exciting news about Alison Sinclair through the grape vine! She's sold a triology to ROC. I've sent congratulations.

Steph has out a video interview with Nina Munteanu on site at her Chapters signing.

I've seen the draft cover of Pretenders, Book #3 of the Okal Rel Saga. Disappointed Echo couldn't do it due to illness but delighted Brian Hades was able to find an artist to make the very tight deadline. Di Mon is on the cover, with the Monatese library for backdrop, and framed in green marble.

Had a wonderful coffee meeting with R�mi Despres-Smyth, a master enterprise programmer and the partner of Prince George's own Garth Frizzell, CEO of Terra Cognita, to discuss his reactions to Righteous Anger and the saga, in general. Programmer/analysts seem to be one of the demographics the ORU appeals to and I am particularly honored to count R�mi as an engaged reader.

Kept new reader Heather Ouelette, a faculty member in the UNBC Nursing Program, up very late finishing Courtesan Prince [evil gleeful laugh]. Her husband had to take the book away from her.

Finally getting to read Courtesan Prince to my two younger daughters, oth teenagers. Gratified by their interest. It isn't a given that one's own family will be "into" one's fiction. Especially not teenagers.

Planning to meet with Craig Bowlsby in Vancouver mid-April to discuss his novella from Horth's period in Bryllit's fleet.

Been skyping back and forth with Justyn Perry of Edge about various things, and exchanging e-mail with Brian Hades about Pretenders. Justyn has me thinking about doing an ORU podcast with longer readings, discussions, interviews, etc.
Engaged Jill Bell, the book chick, to help me with the Big Move from Windstorm Creative to Edge for the works in the extended series. Still getting my act together on this front as I work with Edge to put Pretenders to bed. :-)

Website Upgrade Warning

2008-03-19T08:58:00.003-07:00

Just an FYI to members of the First Expansion and our lovely readers, fans and followers. :-) Please bear with us a bit while we shake out the bugs due to a recent upgrade by our service providers for the ORU website. Everything seems to be there, but David Lott is still wrestling with tech support to get the "friends" mailing list working again. We are also in-process with changes for the expanded line of books and will be making more announcements about that as things progress. It's an exciting time for the Okal Rel Universe! The silences are good, waiting ones. But you know how things are in the book business - "fast" is a couple of months. Sort of refreshing actually, given the killing pace of everything else in the modern world! So, please do not adjust your sets. :-)

ORU Site Featured on SF Canada

2008-03-19T08:43:00.004-07:00

Much thanks to the talented and prolific Edward Willett for featuring the ORU website on the SF Canada website.

Playing with Photobooth and iPhoto

2008-03-06T17:53:00.007-08:00

Finally starting to play with my Mac a little. It's always a healthy sign for me when I want to play so I decided to celebrate by sharing the result. :-) Here's what I was able to make of a quick-and-ugly photobooth shot on my Mac, at work, using iPhoto effects. Not up to Justyn's powers of Photoshop mastery, of course, but this one isn't going in the EDGE catalog. :-)

Science and Morality in the ORU

2008-02-28T07:54:00.006-08:00

I had fun explaining the nature of reality skimming and the moral problem of social control it poses for societies dependent on it, at the math and physics symposium organized by Hal Friesen. I hope the audience of serious math and physics students enjoyed the fiction break and returned, refreshed, to the scientific presentation. I couldn't coax this audience to read, but I managed to give away books in exchange for questions. Unlike an SF crowd, this group had no trouble imagining there could be social control mechanisms for the safe use of a potentially destructive but essential technology. Much thanks to those who got in the spirit of it with me, including the two writers who attended. Special thanks to organizer Hal Friesen for agreeing to take pictures.

Righteous Anger and the Golden Duck

2008-02-21T08:05:00.004-08:00

Below is how Dave Anderson explained the Golden Duck nomination to EDGE publicist Justyn Perry. The award is given out at Duckon June 13-15, 2008.

"Righteous Anger is being considered for Hal Clement (Young Adult Award) This award is named after Hal Clement, the pen name of Harry Stubbs, who was a well known science fiction writer and science teacher. He helped children's science fiction programming wherever he went and was an all-round nice guy. The award is for science fiction books of grades 6-12 that have a young adult protagonist. The science should be as correct as possible, but still a good story. - DGA Feb 08"

The excitement in Horth's life spans his teenage years, starting at eleven years of age, although he is physically an eighteen-year-old at that age being as Vrellish as he is. The Vrellish grow up fast, physically. I guess a lot of kids these days feel they've grown up fast, too, where sex and violence are concerned.

Life, the Universe and Everything Conference

2008-02-21T07:12:00.003-08:00

Delighted to tell the world ORU books and buttons were distributed by Charlie Harmon at the educators' conference Life, the Universe and Everything this month and David-Glenn Anderson distributed 25 copies of the Worlds of Lynda Williams CDs which contains classroom exercises featuring the ORU. I can't thank Charlie and DGA enough and hope classes and educators will continue to add material of their own to the CD to increase its utility to their peers.

Dave Anderson recommends Betterworlds

2008-02-17T10:10:00.004-08:00

Sharing this from an RFF (Readers for the Future) posting by David Glen Anderson, repeated below. Sounds like a website worth supporting. I like the idea of books supporting good causes, and I like to see second hand books move on to new lives. (The book Dave talks about below isn't Righteous Anger - I'm pretty sure he's got a copy of it. He's into all kinds of good books and good ways to make them mean as much as they can in the world.)

Before I left to attend Life, the Universe and Everything, I ordered one of the Golden Duck candidates from BetterWorld.com (http://www.BetterWorld.com/) Fund literacy, care for the environment, and get a fair price on the books you want. 2 Million Used Books. Free shipping in the USA, $2.97 worldwide This book was not available new.

The book is in transit. I went to their website. For less than $30 I found about 8 books that I needed to fill in some holes. Some are exlibrary copies but when I cannot find certain books in my local bookstore exlibrary works. BetterWorld lists libraries et al that benefit by my purchase.

Dave Anderson

Praise for ORU Readers from Nina

2008-02-13T23:32:00.002-08:00

Had to share these kind words from Nina Munteanus (author of Darwin's Paradox) on facebook. She was responding to a comment by myself. I said I was proud of the quality of readers the Okal Rel Universe appealed to. :-)

Steph's Video of 2nd Anth Launch in PG

2008-02-09T09:20:00.000-08:00

Kudos from Rita McInnis

2008-02-05T08:11:00.000-08:00

PG Launch for 2nd Anthology

2008-02-04T06:46:00.000-08:00

Last but not least, click the picture for a link to a page of picture taken by my husband David Lott at the Prince George launch for Okal Rel Universe Anthology 2, Jan 29 2008. He didn't put up all the shots he took! So I've added this one from the set, here, to feature Stephen St. Laurent and Michelle Cry-Whiting who spiced up the proceedings with their media presence. Big thank-you, as well, to Citizen reporter Paul Strickland for coming out. Betsy Trumpener put in an appearance with family as a member of the audience. I was also delighted to have fellow SF author Nathalie Mallet in the audience.

Big thank you, as well, to the readers: Krysia Anderson (who did a great job of reading from her story "Ladylike" in the 2nd Anthology), Paul Strickland (who read the Horth as a child at Amel's genotyping reception scene from Righteous Anger), Hal Friesen (who read from his forthcoming story for the 3rd anthology featuring a run in with Di Mon), and Gareth of the UNBC Fencing Club (who read the lead up to the fight in the arena on SanHome from Righteous Anger).

In costume for the event, we had Mel and Kailey as Di Mon and Ranar, and Tegan as a Golden Demish princess. I wore my red velvet cloak which I think of as Vretla Vrel's "dress up" attire for Demish receptions. On the table at the back of the roome, for show and tell, we had samples of braid worked in thread which a few members of the audience had fun playing with after the main event. I am in the debt of helpers Angela, Tegan, Mel and Kailey for helping with set up. And, of course, my husband David Lott too the pictures and helped with nearly everything from picking up treats to driving us to the event. Angela Lott made me the little sign behind the chocolates which read "Do not eat if you are Vrellish". Mel Farrow created the braid worn by herself (as Di Mon) and by Tegan (as a Demish princess). The chart explaining which colors went with which house was also created by Mel for the event. Art for the third anthology, by Richard Bartrop, was on display as a poster. I also gave away a commemorative postcard, to readers and others doing presentations, which featured the 3rd anthology artwork. Also on display was the ORU plaque given to me for Xmas by Lisa O. After the readings and costume presentations we had a fencing demonstration by the UNBC Freeblades Fencing Club, MC'd by their president Gareth Hopkins.

Much thanks to all participants and attendees! And if you weren't there this time, plan to do something for the next launch (Book #3: Pretenders in the fall) or to come out and see what other people come up with.