Hey, they’re releasing a version of the uber-awesome writing software Scrivener for Windows. Beta available for Nanowrimo, official release beginnings of 2011, going for 40$ a license.

W00t.

So, after a month of near-eclipse (wedding-related, to be fair), I’ve started to work on a new short story.

And, of course, I stopped halfway through and started researching planet-building. Right now, I’m onto my tenth webpage of research, and counting…

Josh Vogt interviews me for his “never have, never will” feature over at the Examiner. So if you want to know what I wouldn’t do to promote my book or the story I wish I’d written first, head over here.

Slowly waking up after a much-needed 12-hour night. Got tea and pain au chocolat, with which you can never go wrong.

Today, we’re going shopping for new casserole and pans (not exactly fascinating, but much-needed since our old ones have basically worn through).

Cooking experiments: demonstrated how to cook semi-polished rice (the package was French and suggested some horrendous things should be done to the rice; I made up an alternate method). Next up, brown rice!

-taught myself (not that there’s much involved) how to use VNI to input Vietnamese characters. Basically input numbers in addition to letters in order to add the diacritical marks (slightly non-intuitive, but I prefer numbers to the other method, which involves inputting extra letters/symbols). OK, that’s this week’s distraction, now I have no excuse to go back to my lessons…

-tried a slightly different phở recipe (see, I can use VNI *grin*). H was happy; I, less so. I think using the vegetarian broth as the basis for a phở bò is a bad idea. Yes, kind of obvious, when you think about it. We have veggie broth at home because it’s more versatile, but it’s just not phở without the meat broth… (beef, in this case. Never was a fan of the chicken version). Let’s see if I can find some without MSG… (yes, I could make my own beef broth, but I seldom have 3 hours to cook broth, so shortcuts are nice).

-also, am self-teaching myself Python, on the H’s recommendation that it’s a more versatile language than bash scripting, which is what I used before. I can see his point: it’s more practical, more readable, and it’s portable, which is darn handy. Go Python.

A small reminder that you can now order The Immersion Book of SF, which contains my short story “Father’s Last Ride” as well as awesome fiction from the likes of Tanith Lee and Lavie Tidhar. Should be shipping everywhere now. I have a shiny copy somewhere, which I still need to read.

And you can also get Dark Futures, Jason Sizemore’s anthology of dark dystopias, which includes my Chinese SF horror “Father’s Flesh, Mother’s Blood” as well as contributions by Jennifer Pelland and Ekaterina Sedia.

Meanwhile, I’m told Interzone 230 (which contains “Age of Miracles, Age of Wonders”, aka the Aztec multi-POV steampunk) has shipped. There’s a comment thread over there, if you’re interested (and have got a copy. I’m still at the “waiting impatiently” stage).

The Romanian Science Fiction Society (more precisely, Antuza Genescu, with special thanks to Cristian Tamas) translates my SFnovelists article “Traduttore, traditore: translations, languages and cultures” (the original’s here, for those of you who don’t speak Romanian).

That’s pretty awesome.

(yes, there’s a part 2, but I’m not 100% sure I can announce this bit of news yet. Soon-ish, hopefully)

I was twelve years of age when I chopped off my hair, dressed as a boy, and set off to save my family from impending ruin.

I made it almost to the end of my front garden.

(excerpt from the opening of A Most Improper Magick)

Outwardly, there is nothing much to separate Kat Stephenson’s family from the rest of Regency England: her father is a vicar, her stepmother an avid social climber who raises her three stepdaughters to be dainty ladies suitable for contracting profitable marriages. However, there is Kat’s mother, whom no one talks about–and not because she shamelessly ran off or flirted with one man too many. No, Kat’s mother was a witch: the kind that can make the teapot pour by itself at a social gathering, or cast love spells to make and break marriages.

Kat’s family is in desperate straits: her feckless brother has ruined them through gambling debts, and their only way of escape is for one of her elder sisters to marry a richer, older man–about whom there are some definitely unsavoury rumors. It’s up to Kat to save the day, with the help of her mother’s spell books and magical mirror.

I got this book on Saturday morning, and finished it by Saturday afternoon. It was a great romp: fast-paced, with some hilarious setpieces and some great character interactions. I loved the portrayal of the three sisters and how they stuck by each other; and Stephanie very nicely and concisely portrays the burden of social mores that were the characteristic of the time period. The storyline zips and turns as Kat keeps landing from one set of troubles into another (I especially loved poor Mr Carlyle, besotted by a stray love spell and who kept following Kat’s sister like a puppy), and the magic makes a nifty addition to an already packed storyline.

Oh, and it’s got highwaymen. Seriously, what more can you ask for?
(well, ok, I know what I can ask for. Book 2. But it looks I get to wait a year for that…)

Note: A Most Improper Magick is the UK title. In the US, it’ll be released at the beginning of 2011 under Kat, incorrigible

There’s something I particularly hate about large supermarkets in France (I don’t remember this in the UK, and I’ve never been in a US supermarket for long enough, so I wouldn’t know how common it is): there’s a guy with a microphone speaking over the sound system, detailing the deals for the day and where you can find them (“if you don’t hurry they’ll be gone” and that kind of thing). In between the bouts of publicity, they put music, but not the unobtrusive, relaxing kind–rather the peppy kind of music that makes my teeth grind.

It’s cheap, it’s tacky, and it’s a really unpleasant background to have when you’re shopping.

Well, they’ve installed the same thing in our town centre: it broadcasts over the entire shopping area. It’s already quite annoying as it is–but one of the loudspeakers happens to be over the entrance to our building. Net result: we get the sound in the morning, and as a background all day.

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And a last link via zweitpunktnull: Internova, the magazine of international science fiction, relaunches as a webzine.
Here’s a sample of what’s up there, to whet your appetite:

• Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro (Brazil): Peak Time
• Eduardo J. Carletti (Argentina): God’s Gut
• Arthur Goldstuck (South Africa): The Fabulous Yesterdays
• Aleksandar Ziljak (Croatia): What Colour Is the Wind?
• Eric Brown (England): Thursday’s Child
• Sven Klöpping (Germany): Let’s Talk About Death, Baby