I am very addicted to Tim Horton's coffee. Almost as addicted as I am to World of Warcraft. I always said I should take a camera with me on the walk to Tims (which I make at least once a day). There are three Tim's within walking distance from my house, but my favorite is on 118th Avenue. It's not that long a walk, about 20 minutes each way, but it takes me through the playground of the school I volunteer in, near the abandoned hospital that intrigues me (and is where Deadmonton starts) and through a small wooded park. I always see something interesting on my travels, but never have the camera to record any of it. Until this time. I took the camera with me the other day, and managed to get a picture of this blue jay. I got a few other great pictures, including one of a squirrel who really didn't want me near his tree and a magpie that was sitting at the very top of a giant pine tree, looking quite majestic.

This story, by the way, has nothing to do with the news I wanted to share today, but I wanted an excuse to post the picture, so there you go :-)

So right, news. I've got some :-)

Firstly, my poem, Fae, is in this month's issue of Lorelei Signal. I love the illustration that Holly Eddy did for it. It's very nice :-)

Also, there has been a new review of Sister Margaret that I'm very excited about :-) Anna, of Genre Reviews said:

Is it possible for a story to be simultaneously grim and fun? Because this one pretty much is. In the spirit of urban fantasy, there's equal parts intrigue and action, the battle against an evil vampire, and a plethora of folks living in a gritty reality. I loved Bayne, who isn't really a sidekick but fills the quirky content nicely, and the plot twist at the end is a great one, unexpected but logical.

She said more too, of course :-) You can see the whole review here --> Sister Margaret by Rhonda Parrish

My last bit of news for today is that I'm going on vacation to San Francisco. Yay!

We are leaving on Sunday and will be gone for a week. While I'm away I will be completely offline, I'm not even taking my laptop in order to force myself to not work, at least for a little while. I will see you when I get back though :-)

I'll leave you with a picture of Danica finishing up her ice cap from the aforementioned trip to Tims. Why? Because I think she's awesome.

Amber Stults had a link from her site that would grade your website’s SEO friendliness. I was curious so I checked mine. I was pleased with the results and also enjoyed the suggestions for improving my SEO ratings.

If you’re interested in plugging your site in you can do it at http://website.grader.com/ .  Since the code for the badge given to me by that site is only working on select browsers, I’ll also just come out and say, my grade was 89. Did you beat me?

Originally published at Rhonda Parrish. You can comment here or there.

Help Catherynne M. Valente

My auction for ad space on Niteblade, a copy of Sister Margaret and a copy of Lost Innocence ends at midnight tomorrow. Right now it has one bid on it (thank you Greg) for $5. Surely we can do better than that? The auction is here please check it out.

In other news, my short story “How It’s Supposed To Be” is up at The Legendary. Sadly, this story was inspired by a very similar situation that happened here in Edmonton not so very long ago.

Originally published at Rhonda Parrish. You can comment here or there.

I’m guest-blogging at Jenny Gilliam’s blog today about roles in life and time management. I’d love to hear what you do to make sure you manage your time too so go take a peek and leave me a note

Originally published at Rhonda Parrish. You can comment here or there.

Every year wasps come and build a nest by our front door and every year we knock it down. The nests are never in the same spot, but always in the same general area. They are persistent. If they would just build the nest somewhere out of the way we’d probably leave them alone but it’s a safety hazard to have a wasp nest right by your front door. Ya know, because people need to walk there. That means we don’t really have much choice but to destroy it.

I’m especially sympathetic to the wasps today, because I can relate to them. They keep buzzing around, building nests and having them knocked down and they are going to keep doing that until they find the perfect spot. One where we can leave them in peace and co-exist. I keep writing and revising SHADOWS trying to get it to that perfect spot. One where a reader will be hooked from the first paragraph, devour it in one sitting and ask for more.

I suspect both the wasps and I have a lot more work in our future.

I like SHADOWS’ current incarnation. I like it a lot but I think I’m going to rewrite it again. I received my critique of the first two chapters back from Jim C. Hines and it was fantastic. He showed me the parts that worked and what didn’t and gave me some suggestions for improvement. After thinking them over and really pondering the middle of the story, I think I can tell a better tale if I start from scratch.

I have a couple things to clear off my plate here first (a paper to write for school, a final exam on the 26th, that sort of thing) and then I’m going to start over. My plan is to really map out the plot, add a lot more detail to it and then start writing about July 13th. Why so long away, you ask? Well, I will be doing the outline thing and then I’ll be on vacation in San Francisco from July 5th to 12th. I think I’d be deceiving myself to think I’ll be doing any work there LoL

So yes, once the 13th comes I will be back to work on SHADOWS. Unfortunately for the wasps, they’ll be rebuilding a lot sooner than that.

*It’s probably not a good thing that it took me nine shots to get a picture of their nest that I liked, is it? LOL

Originally published at Rhonda Parrish. You can comment here or there.

I sent June’s newsletter out this morning. I actually finished writing it yesterday in good time, but then became distracted and forgot to sent it out until now. *facedesk* I fail at focus this week. Sorry.

Anyway, it’s out now, and um…yeah.

<.<

>.>

Look! Sparkly!

*flees*

Originally published at Rhonda Parrish. You can comment here or there.

Funny story.

Mondays I meet with Cindy and BD and we critique each other’s work. It’s awesome. Anyway, this Monday once the meeting was pretty much over and we were just packing up and getting ready to go I glanced down at my ipod and caught the date staring up at me from it.

“Oh crap!” I said.

BD started laughing right away but Cindy looked a bit puzzled.

“How’d it get to be the 15th already?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“Got a newsletter you need to do?” BD asked, still laughing.

“Erm, that is…” I muttered before pointing out the window. “Look! Sparkly!”

Okay…I just made up the ‘Look sparkly’ part, but the rest was true. Here are a couple more pictures to distract you while I attempt to write a newsletter before it gets any more overdue.

I <3 my camera. For now, back to work on the newsletter…

Originally published at Rhonda Parrish. You can comment here or there.

Help Catherynne M. Valente

I don’t actually know yuki_onna or justbeast . I’ve never read any of Catherynne’s work and they aren’t on my friends list. That being said, when I read about their troubles I wanted to help. So I’m donating ad space on Niteblade, a copy of Lost Innocence and a copy of Sister Margaret to the auction to raise some money for them.

My auction is here. Please stop by and place a bid. For $5 you could win two great things to read and ad space on Niteblade Magazine. Plus, you’ll be help some people who really need it. If you can think of something else I could throw in on the auction to make it better let me know, I’m very open to suggestions.

Originally published at Rhonda Parrish. You can comment here or there.

Sometimes you just gotta screenshot things. Even if they don’t actually mean anything. This is one of those times. Sister Margaret is actually tied with all these novels in that we all have five or more ratings and 100% of them are ‘great’. I’m sure this exalted status is only temporary but how could I not take a screenshot when it looks like my story has been rated higher than The Lord of the Rings? Dude, that is one of those oppourtunities that if you don’t take it you’re a fool. I’m lots of things. I hope a fool isn’t one of them.

Originally published at Rhonda Parrish. You can comment here or there.

S.G. Browne’s novel Breathers is about sentient zombies. Can you imagine being trapped in your body while it slowly rotted around you? That’s the reality for these creatures. It’s been described as a zom-rom-com (zombie romantic comedy) and is going to be made into a movie with Fox Searchlight. Pretty sweet. Intrigued? You can win an autographed copy just by leaving a comment on/in the Of Warmth, Of Dragons issue of Niteblade. Each comment will be considered an entry into the draw, and if you buy a .pdf copy that’s 5 entries. I’m making the draw on July 1st so you’ve plenty of time to wrack up (rack up?) some entries if you’re interested.

I’d also like to say a huge thank you to anyone who bought Sister Margaret through Fictionwise and rated it there. Sister Margaret is currently the highest rated title for my publisher at Fictionwise. That is very flattering and makes me incredibly happy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Still working on the psuedo-secret project, though it’s reached the waiting stage. I’m hopeful there won’t be too much waiting involved, but I guess time will tell. The collaborative projects I’m working on are still a going concern - one more than the other. Soon I’ll be able to share a little bit about it, but not quite yet. Sorry LOL Also working on a fun horror short story that I think has a lot of potential…more about that when it’s done

In my non-writing life things are a bit crazy this week. It’s the last week of my daughter’s dance stuff leading up to her year-end recital. That combined with things like vet appointments (for the dog, not me :-p), hair appointments (grey roots just keep on coming back…) and an upcoming visit from my parents have been keeping me busy. Once this weekend is over though, so is dance for the year. That will be a huge relief and cause a large increase in writing time. Time I’ll have to use to finish up this Women in Literature course I’m struggling through for school. Whee!

I won an auction through Brenda Novak’s auction for diabetes reseach this year for a critique by Jim C. Hines. The critique is of one short story or the first chapter of a novel. I -adore- Jim’s work and think he’s just a pretty awesome guy all round so I’m really looking forward to this critique…the problem is, I can’t decide what to send him. His usual genre is fantasy so I could send him the first chapter of Shadows, which is about as polished as I can make it at this point. His feedback would possibly help me polish it further and hopefully help me place it with an agent, or I could send him the first draft of the aforementioned fun horror short story so his critique could help guide my revisions on it and help it get placed. But it’s horror, which isn’t his primary genre.

What do you think? What would you do?

Originally published at Rhonda Parrish. You can comment here or there.

Productive again? Yay!

My focus, which has been sadly lacking since November appears to be making short appearances these days. It’s nothing fantastic and I’ve not suddenly turned into a writing machine, but I’ve been more productive than in ages.

One thing that has helped is the pseudo-secret project I’m working on these days. I’ll share more details soon…ish, but I still need to pin down a couple details first. I’m excited about it though. I’ll likely spill the beans about it on my newsletter first, but information on the blog will follow soon after.

I’m also working on two collaborative projects. Kyle Cassidy ( LJ ~ Twitter ~ Website ) recently set up a project where he paired random strangers up to work on something, anything, together. Long story short, I am working in two collaborations as a direct result. Each is hugely different from the other and I’m really enjoying them both. I feel like they are really pushing me out of the rut I’d been in and sort of forcing productivity. This is a good thing because if I do it long enough it will become a habit again LOL

Now, so long as the baseball game we’re supposed to go to tonight doesn’t get rained out, I’ll be golden. Please don’t rain. Danica has been looking forward to this all week and passed up a chance to go to a movie and a slumber party for this game. Please don’t rain…

Originally published at Rhonda Parrish. You can comment here or there.

Wow. It’s issue number eight of Niteblade already. It doesn’t seem that long ago that Niteblade was just an idea I had, and I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off. It seems that I can — with help from some fantastic and talented friends.

My husband Jo does the layout for the .pdf and some of the editing. He is a stickler for details and makes sure the magazine looks amazing before he sends it to me to go online. If you haven’t ever seen the .pdf you really need to. It’s phenomenal.

BD Wilson stepped in during the last issue when I was pulling out my hair and wailing “I can’t do it! I can’t do it all! I can’t deal with this hacking and the submissions and the web layout and the *insert stuff here*. I just can’t!” She took over formatting the fiction then and for this and upcoming issues did/will do all the web layout. She’s awesome and I think she did a fabulous job.

And what issue of Niteblade would be complete without the artwork of Marge Simon? I feel so lucky to have met Marge, be able to call her a friend and have her work grace the pages of Niteblade.

Put all that together with thirteen poems, thirteen short stories and two book reviews and you’ve got the newest issue of Niteblade. >> Check it out here <<

As if that weren’t enough, we’re also giving away an autographed copy of S.G. Browne’s book, BREATHERS. It’s a fantastic zombie book that I adored and which is going to be made into a movie in the not-too-distant future. To enter to win all you need to do is either purchase a copy of the June issue in .pdf or leave a comment on any of the stories, poems or reviews in the June web-based version. The details are here.

Check it out

Originally published at Rhonda Parrish. You can comment here or there.

I’ve wanted to get a decent camera for a very long time now. I finally did it. I bought a Nikon d60 this weekend. I’m told it’s a pretty good camera for a photography newbie, and I definitely fall into that category since I haven’t used an SLR camera since photo class in junior high. I picked up an extra lens for it (haven’t started playing with it yet) and also an inexpensive digital camera for Danica to use. We’d been talking about getting her a camera for a while now so we could stop buying disposable ones for all the times we wanted her to be able to take pictures and hearing Jay Lake mention an urban photo safari with his daughter spurred me to action.

It was kinda yucky out today so Dani and I had to change our planned expedition to a neighbourhood park and just hang out in the backyard. It worked out pretty well though, we each got to get to know our cameras a bit better and take a few shots. I’m very, very pleased with my camera and I have a few shots to share.

The obligatory dog picture. I was going to start with a shot I took of Dani, but I figured a good ‘Wow! Dog!’ response would grab your attention and hold it while I showed off my beautiful little girl and a bit of our backyard. So this is Atreyu, my dog. We call him Tre. I love him.

Danica, who I also love. Even more than I love Tre, but don’t tell him that. It would make him sad. Dani’s eleven. Maybe it’s just my parental fear talking but she looks older than eleven to me in this picture…and, quite often, just in general.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Originally published at Rhonda Parrish. You can comment here or there.

Belinda McBride is having a Halloween in May event at her blog and on her mailing list. All month she has been having guest bloggers pop by and write about paranormal expiriences, Samhain or Halloween. I am lucky enough to be one of those guest authors.

Yesterday I was scrambling to find something to write about because I’d forgotten that the topic was meant to be Halloween/Samhain/Paranormal themed…which meant the topic I’d planned to write on wouldn’t work. Wewps. It all worked out in the end, though.

Halloween has always been important to me, so I talked a little bit about that and how what it’s meant to me has changed through my life. Please, take a look if you’re even vaguely interested All comments left on that blog entry (on Belinda’s blog, not mine) will be entered into a draw to win a copy of Sister Margaret.

On a sort of related note I’m curious. If you have received a free copy of Sister Margaret from me and I sent it to you via Fictionwise, did you get it? I’m asking because I’ve given out a fair number of e-books that way and still there are only two reviews for Sister Margaret on the website. If people just aren’t giving reviews that’s fine, but I really want to make sure that people are getting the copies I’ve promised them.

Right, so yes, I’m blogging at Belinda’s today. Check it out by clicking here. Thanks

Originally published at Rhonda Parrish. You can comment here or there.

I’m the memoirist of the day over at SmithMag again today. Yay! You can read my six word story here if you’re interested.

Wheee!

Now I’m off to think of something to write for the guest blogging spot I think I’m doing tomorrow. Should be fun. Wish me luck LOL

Originally published at Rhonda Parrish. You can comment here or there.

I really wanted to love this book. I truly did, but I don’t.

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that I am wildly crazy in love with the movie…and the book is not the same as the movie. At least not yet. I am at page 160 out of 280 and the main character from the movie has just appeared in the book. This doesn’t work for me. Even if the second half of the novel is the same storyline as the movie, it won’t work for me — because I don’t like knowing all about the zombies before we go into that part of the story.

The descriptions in this book are beautiful…well, often grotesque, but beautifully-written. For example (warning, profanity and ya know, horror-y stuff below:

“What the fuck? Hey! Is somebody in here?”

Les grabs one of the plastic jugs. The side has been cut away. Les turns the opening upward. It holds a crazy tiara of stingers; bright, gleaming needles fill the space. Never touch us, don’t even look at us for very long. When the door opens behind him, Les swings the jug, releasing a swarm of tiny missles across a man’s face and chest. The needles grab skin with their tips, and some, pushed by the weight of other  syringes, are plunged deeper. The view from inside this man’s body would appear something like the night sky in the city, thousands of stars becoming visible. In the countr, millions. One of the needles slides precisely into his tearduct, destroying its tiny architecture before burrowin far enough to permanently ruin the man’s ability to narrow his eyes. This particular jab also causes the man to flip a gun out of his hand. The gun slams heavily against the back of the toiler, cracking it, and then spins halfway around the rim before being carried to the bottom by the weight of its handle. The man collapses against the wall, disbelieving — you don’t just do that — and he watches Les retreive the weapon from the bowl.

The first thing to exit the gun is a twist-tie drool of toilet water. The second is a speeding bullet.

I love it. I really do. In fact, the descriptions are so fantastic throughout this novel (at least what I’ve read of it) that I would happily forgive it for not being the movie I adore and enjoy it on its own merits…if it weren’t so much work. Now, perhaps I’m biased because I’m struggling through a literature course for my degree right now. The stories and poems I have to read for it are work. I don’t understand much of them at first reading and have to re-read and re-read and then read interpretations of them. It’s work. I suspect that course is also influencing my enjoyment of Pontypool Changes Everything because it too, requires some work for me.

This is why I’m only giving up on reading it for now. I hope to come back to it in a few weeks or months and read it and see if I like it better, but for now, it’s work.

I thought, at first, maybe I’m just not smart enough to get this, but Jo said it was work for him too, and he’s pretty clever, so…maybe it’s just meant to be confusing…or work…

In the morning, children in full hockey gear skate across the purple and red ice, weaving around an obstacle course of tan corpses. Several of the dear stand frozen, and the children cut down all but two. They become the opposing nets of a makeshift hockey rink. A heart thawed over a small fire is used to draw the centre line and goal creases. A great deal of time is spent disembowelling the baby creatures so that their frozen feces can be used as pucks; however, having never eaten, their little bodies are as clean as packaged straws. The children settle for the mother’s hoof, which twists off easily.

Again, another beautifully-written grotesque scene…but…is it real? Within the story I can’t tell if this is meant to be read literally or if it’s meant to be a metaphor for something, or if Tony Burgess just thought it was awesome and had to include it. I, too, think it’s awesome, but it confuses me. It’s how a chapter starts…and right after this bit the story switches to something completely unrelated and this deer/hockey scene isn’t mentioned again (that I can remember off-hand). I just don’t get it.

So again, I hope to come back to Pontypool Changes Everything sometime sooner rather than later and I hope I can write a glowing review at that time, but for right now I’m mostly just left scratching my head.

Originally published at Rhonda Parrish. You can comment here or there.

…I think I may have figured out my crossposting problem — I was making things far more difficult than they needed to be.

That is, if I HAVE figured out the issue.

Wish me luck.

ETA: It worked! Yay! This means if you have been following my Rhonda Parrish blog on LJ via the rss feed you don’t need to do that anymore. Wh00t!

Originally published at Rhonda Parrish. You can comment here or there.

I've been failing at keeping up this blog. I think it's because I have too many. During the times I am doing well keeping up my 'official' blog this one is lame and vice versa.

I tried to install the Word Press application that would automatically cross post what I put up there to here, but I failed. *sigh* I will make another attempt soon...but if anyone who has already done it wants to tell me all the stuff I'm supposed to edit in the file I would appreciate it. I thought I had it figured out, but when I tried some test posts they never x-posted...and I waited in case they were pokey.

The worst part about this is I really get the impression this add-on is meant to be really, really easy and I suspect when someone explains it to me, or I finally figure it out myself, it's going to be one of those times when you smack yourself in the forehead and go "Oh! Of course!"

I'm struggling, tonight, to write the ending for a story. The reason this is a problem, really, is that once upon a time the story was part of a collection of connected short stories. At that time I was able to end it sort of obscurely because all the questions readers would have had were answered in the next story. I've since ripped that short story collection apart and begun revising the individual pieces up to make them stand alone, and submitting them that way. Because I never had to think of the ending for this story (with the working title THERE because its sequel was titled AND BACK AGAIN har har) I don't have one in my brain and trying to mentally go back to the place I was when I wrote this in the first place is not working.

I'll get it yet and my critique group will tell me if it works or not, but in the meantime I just had to share my pain a little bit.

That being said, at least I'm writing and even if the words I'm putting down totally suck (I don't think they do) they are being written and progress is progress.

Right? :)

ETA: The ending is done and sent to my critique group *looks nervous*

If you have some time to kill you should check out the customer reviews for this shirt --> Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt, Available in Various Sizes

Seriously, they are teh funneh.