Chris Howard's Writing Blog

Fantasy Magazine excerpt of Seaborn

Chapter one with a links to 2 and 3.  Go check it out here:

http://www.darkfantasy.org/fantasy/?p=661

Cool!

An interview!

Thanks, Lori!  An interview I did with author Lori Devoti a couple weeks ago just went up on her site, and looks great--I'm a little blue, however, but that's just my author pic from the Juno Books site.

http://loridevoti.com/blog/2008/07/01/interview-urban-fantasy-author-chris-howard/

Oh yeah, a fox

This little guy came running through our backyard yesterday, in a hurry, up the hill, and into the forest.

Seaborn in Wordle

Ran a chunk of Seaborn through Wordle (http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/33549/Seaborn).  Thanks Skott!

Books!

I just received an email from Paula at Juno Books, the subject  was "Books!"  Yes, she has Seaborn in print, and she's going to send me a box.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

I spent the day in Monterey with my dad--most of it at my favorite aquarium in the world.

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/

Click to see the full view.

 

Creative Commons Technology Summit

I'll be out in California most of next week, and really looking forward to the CC tech Summit at Google next Wednesday.

More about it here:
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Creative_Commons_Technology_Summit_2008-06-18

I think this is very cool

Cory Doctorow's YA SF novel Little Brother is the first Creative Commons-licensed novel to hit the New York Times Bestseller list--and even cooler that it's climbing the list. 

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/04/little-brother-goes.html

Amazon's Digital Text Platform

Amazon's Digital Text Platform (DTP) is where you go to manage all of your ebook-selling functions for Kindle, Amazon's eBook Reader--and the "Kindle Store" the place to get all things Kindle, books, newspapers, magazines, and other downloadable content.

DTP follows a simple structure, you have a Shelf with all your ebooks, reports to see what's going on with sales, and your account information--address, identity, and bank account information--who you are, and how you're going to get paid.

I signed up yesterday to include my novel Nanowhere, really just to see how easy it is to get things going with Amazon.  And, yeah, it's very simple.  Some basic account forms to fill out--the same information you need for PayPal--and you're on your way. 

If you're doing this as an "individual" business type, then you may have to get some numbers together first, like a bank account and routing number. I mean, I don't carry this information around with me, but I do have a bank account specifically set up for online stuff--an account separate from our main account.  I recommend this if you're doing business of any sort online--and this is a business arrangement, you're selling books through Amazon.com, and they need to know where to send your money.

You will have to provide one of the following:
Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN)
Social Security Number (SSN)
Employer Identification Number (EIN)

Here's a quick walk-through of the ebook setup (Click any of these images to see the larger versions).

I created a nice readable HTML version of Nanowhere (using simple tagging.  See the link at the end for all the supported tags).  The upload block also has a cool Preview feature to show you what your book's going to look like on a Kindle. 

Then I set a price, and saved the whole thing to my Shelf:

Before you can get your ebooks into the Kindle Store, you need to add your account information:

and--so you can get paid--bank info:

And you're done.  It's free to set up, and anyone with a Kindle can wirelessly download and read your books, articles, stories.

Kindle Stuff:
Supported HTML tags:
http://forums.digitaltextplatform.com/dtpforums/entry.jspa?externalID=30&categoryID=11

http://dtp.amazon.com/mn/signin

Kindle books through Fictionwise?  No problem:
http://www.fictionwise.com/help/kindleFaq.htm

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TagGalaxy

http://www.taggalaxy.de/  - Check it out.  Very cool visual search that pulls photos and metadata from Flickr, arranges thumbnails on a spherical surface that you can roll around to get a good look.  The first shot below is my search for "Wiscon 32"

Thanks, Skott!

I have mine...

The t-shirt is great--got one a couple months ago, but now I'm looking at the hoody.  Go get yours:

I just pulled out Silk to re-read.

http://www.caitlinrkiernan.com
http://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com

Forbidden Love T-shirt

I must have one.  Get yours here: http://www.spacepancake.com/shirts/forbiddenlove.php

via Tcritic

One of my arthropod buddies

I sat out on the back deck this morning, a warm spring morning, a cup of coffee, my post-copyedited manuscript of SEABORN, and my camera.  Shot this little guy on the side of the house.  Click the pics to see the larger view.

Wouldn't this guy be cute around 4 feet long?

Hi5'n in the Galapagos

I'm looking at the global social network map over at Wandamere by way of an analysis of the map post at Valleywag.  It's basically our planet with national boundaries filled in with the color of the dominant social net in that particular country.  My first thought was...how cool.  Then it became obvious that there's a drawback in using the brand colors for mapping when several of the major social nets have all gone blue.  (So, is that MySpace that's taken over America, and Facebook in Canada?) 

My second thought: are they really hot on Hi5 in the Galapagos or did the islands simply get lumped in with Ecuador where Hi5 is hot?

Here's another cool social net face-off between facebook, myspace, orkut, bebo, linkedin over on GoogleTrends, showing news reference and search volumes. 

Check out the giant version of the map here: http://www.wandamere.com/SocialNetworks_WorldMap.png/SocialNetworks_WorldMap-full.jpg

Sadko

Sadko is a Russian epic--named after the hero of the story.  Sadko is a "merchant and gusli musician from Novgorod, he is transported to the realm of the Sea King. There, he is to provide music to accompany the dance at the marriage of the King's daughter. The dancing grows so frenzied that the surface of the sea billows and surges, threatening to founder the ships on it. To calm the sea, Sadko smashes his gusli. The storm dissipates and he reappears on the shore."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Sadko.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadko_(musical_tableau)

David Apatoff (Illustration Art) just posted about Repin, and that struck a memory--made me remember Jeff posting about Repin--and other great Russian artists a while back:
http://jeffhayesfinearts.blogspot.com/2006/01/great-russian-painters.html

And here's the Ilya Repin masterpiece, Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom (1876, State Russian Museum). Click for a larger view, or hit that link (above) back to wiki commons for the super-sized version.

Harvard Museum of Natural History

Alice and I took the kids to Cambridge today, spent a few hours wandering through the museums.  Amazing stuff, especially the marine exhibit--all made from glass.

The Harvard Museum of Natural History is the public face of three research museums: the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the Harvard University Herbaria, and the Mineralogical and Geological Museum

Google Ocean

I know what's down there.  Those Googlers are going to be shocked at what they bring to the surface...

Google Ocean promises do to the oceans--floor to sruface--what Google Earth did for interactive mapping and geographic information.  And perhaps more.

Check out the details at JustMagic:  http://www.justmagic.com/GM-GE.html

News: http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9931412-7.html?tag=nefd.lede

Level 2 on PMOG!

"After playing PMOG for 16 days, you are a level 2 Pathmaker..."  I've been going on missions, setting lightposts, even went on a crazed Destroyer frenzy and stuck mines in likely to find places.

Cool!  Check out PMOG (Passively Multiplayer Online Game) here: http://pmog.com/

If you email me, I'll send you an invite, through which I get medals, honor, prestige, etc. etc.  So, do send me an email if you'd like to get started.

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Sift and post

As promised, I have spent exactly ten minutes scrolling through 1200 images, and pulled these three nearly at random.  I took these on two different islands, Patmos and Mikonos, and then in Corinthos.

Click on the images to see the large view

Windmills Without Wind

Narrow Path

Corinthian Capital Prototype

Nice Vampire Phenomenon

My own opinion is that NVP isn't anywhere near full swing yet--not with Twilight hitting theaters in December, and the next in the series Breaking Dawn, out in August.  This is just the start.  Saw this today on CafePress while looking for something completely different:

If you heart Edward Cullen, too, then go buy yours here: http://www.cafepress.com/bae/3236924  (Edward's a nice enough guy, but I have a thing for Alice).

The man of steel has asked for friendship...

Okay, my work on this planet is nearly complete.  (Click the image to view it)

In a related note, over on Fangs, Fur, & Fey, the topic this week is... How "real" are your characters, do you talk to them, are you the god(dess) of your world? 

My comment:

I talk to them--does in my head count?  Sometimes out loud, but I try to keep that locked down for obvious reasons.  I don't think my characters tell me what to do, but it is their drive, their lives, their stories.  I'd call it more interactive, with me hammering a stake in the ground for the ending--it should end something like this, and then nudging them all in that direction.

Feeling romantic...about books

Thank you, Mark Henry, (Happy Hour of the Damned), for taking the shot of stacks of Seaborn samplers at the Romantic Times Convention.

And to Stacia Kane (Personal Demons) for forwarding Mark's pics.  Now, I need to know where she got those killer bracelets.  That box behind the Seaborn samplers contains Stacia's book and a pile of cool red and black bracelets.

Just another vigilante in the meme wars

I'm a level 1 vigilante on PMOG (Passively Multiplayer Online Game).  I've created one mission--setting out lightposts, and navigated through a pile of others.

http://pmog.com/users/the0phrastus

I've already earned some badges:

1. Indie, for players who go a 24 hour period without using Google
2. Torch, for players that visit 100 URLs over a 24 hour period
3. Fellow Traveller, for players who complete more than 8 missions

Find out more here: http://pmog.com/ and here

Seaborn Samplers

Oodles of them from Sean Wallace at Wildside Press (Juno Books is an imprint of Wildside). These contain the first ten chapters of Seaborn, with a very nice introduction by Paula Guran, and an essay at the end of the book (last couple pages) by me--on underwater acoustics.

You can find these at a Juno Books or Wildside Press booth at conventions like RTC (Romantic Times), ComicCon NY (I think), WisCon (definitely--because I'll be there), ReaderCon, and others.

If you want a stack to drop off at your local bookstore, library, writers meeting, just let me know where to send them (chrishoward.author@gmail.com ).

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mare me vocat

The Sea calls (or 'is calling') me.

That's my spanking new motto, created with the Latin Motto Generator:

http://www.inrebus.com/latinmottogenerator.php

Go get yours.

Quite possibly the coolest service I've seen in a long time

You must try this out.  It's video and music and brilliant automated arrangement and effects.  And it's free. 

I'm talking about animoto

Go use it.  Make some video, do some kick-ass stuff, support them.

Creative pasta

Alice and I were at Shaw's today in North Hampton, NH, and we found something very peculiar in the pasta asile.  Mother in Law's Tongue.  That's the name of this pasta, all striped with barbs running down both sides of a thin strips (tongues) of pasta.

Erethizon dorsatum

Yeah, we got one of those.

There are 7 orders, 17 families, 40 genera, and 58 species represented among the Mammals of New England...and we seem to have them all running, walking, waddling, through our yard over the course of a year.  And not just mammals, but animals of all kinds. Today, I open the front door and there's a full grown turkey right outside--What are you like selling something?  (We see turkeys every spring off in the woods, or at the end of the yard, but up close, they're big damn birds).

This afternoon, little before 3PM, guess what's plodding across our backyard, no hurry because nobody's going to bother it without getting into some pain? 

A porcupine:

Click the pic above to see it larger. 

XKCD meets C&H

Brilliant...as usual.

http://xkcd.com/409/

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On-demand retail, from apparel to laser-cut acrylic

I just saw that Zazzle, the t-shirt/sticker/infinite everything service offers custom neckties. Put your art on a tie and wear it.  Pretty cool.

I'm also checking out Ponoko, which is like the Zazzle/CafePress thing but for laser cut plywood, plastics, perfboard.  Also cool.

http://www.zazzle.com
http://www.ponoko.com

Amazon TextBuyIt

Has anyone tried it?  I just texted AMAZON with the ISBN for Seaborn and got a message back asking me to press 1 to buy the book.  Very cool.  I don't know how SMS savvy you are, but it's not something I use all the time, and ordering books, coffee, iPods via text message seems...awkward.  On the other hand, SMS is big in the US, but it's gigantic everywhere else.  Anything can be done--and usually is--by texting something or someone.  Makes a lot of sense.

Check out Amazon.com's mobile shopping how-to.

Sea Creatures in Glass

If you're in the Boston area and you love the sea, marine biology (as well as botany, geology, and a host of other sciences), you must check out the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

The "exhibition features dozens of these spectacular glass animals, many on display for the first time since Harvard acquired them around 1878. Combined with video, real scientific specimens, a recreation of the Blaschka’s studio, and a rich assortment of memorabilia, these models of marine invertebrates offer intriguing insights into the history, personality, and artistry of the extraordinary men who created them."

Find out more here:  http://www.hmnh.harvard.edu/

Thanks, Skott!  I had no idea that this kind of wonder existed.   Actually we've all seen the amazing plants of glass--whole, sliced, sectioned--that look so real you're tempted to start betting on it.  The marine animal exhibit is new.  Have to see it.

Another cool shirt

I linked to a cool mermaid shirt at Quiet Hero earlier, then found this one on T-Critic--another cool ocean-themed shirt from Patagonia:e

W's Return T-Shirt

Cool mermaid shirt

"Wicked mermaid" shirt over at Quiet Hero.  Mens and womens versions.

http://quiethero.com/shop/index.php?cPath=65

Boskone 45 update

Skott and I drove down to the Westin along the Boston waterfront after work on Friday to catch a couple of the panels at Boskone, meet some cool publishers and writers, find out how the Naval War College plays games, the usual stuff.  The preso by Christopher Weuve on Naval Analysis Through Iterative Wargaming was very interesting.  He went through historic gaming, the war college's influence in decision making, how the games are played, won, lost, cool stuff. 

We also took in a panel with the amazing Karl Schroeder on forecasting the future, how he's been working with government and industry groups to prepare possible futures for the policy makers in these industries and government departments.  Karl talked about the scenario building processes, the elitism of typical futurism--and futurists, time frames--pretty short 10 -20 year forecasts.   One of the interesting--even more interesting than the already interesting forecasting projects he's been a part of--was a book-length work, Crisis in Zefra, he wrote for the Canadian army (Directorate of Land Strategic Concepts of National Defense Canada), basically dramatized future military operations in a fictional citystate preparing to hold its first democratic elections.   SF author's dream, right there.

We said hello, shook hands--between panels--with Tobias Buckell, and then saw him later with sort of a Stross-Buckell mashup in the hotel's lobby.  (Some issues with all of us meeting in the restaurant, apparently).  I asked Sarah Beth Durst about getting on Boskone panels for next year, and she and Paul Park and Craig Shaw Gardner gave me some great advice.  Me on a panel?  Won't that be crazy?

Had a couple chats with Kelly Link and Gavin Grant (in the same place, the Small Beer Press booth, but at different times) about the future of publishing, ebooks, phones, Creative Commons licensing, and the commercial uses of user generated content.  This last is for a product I'm working on, launching some time end of March, early April.  More on that when I can.  Skott picked up a couple books.  I picked up The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner there.

Also stopped to talk to Cynthia at Withywindle Books, talked about art, the upcoming release of Seabon (Juno Books) in July!  I actually had my picture taken. 

Some great panels this year, interesting new directions, how to write battles, painting demos from Bob Eggleton and Omar Rayyan.  The Higgins Armory is here all weekend with armored combat demonstrations--how can you not love that?   A bunch of our writing group got together in the evening for talk and dinner with Craig Shaw Gardner and Jeff Carver. 

I also chatted with Craig and a few others about a new title for The New Sirens, and I'm now running a contest here.  Check out it.  Help me find a title, and win art, ARCs, something cool.  More info here: http://the0phrastus.typepad.com/

Pics.  Just a few from my phone.  Karl Schroeder, Gavin Grant (just after he used Skott's iPhone to take our picture), Higgins Armory demo.  Click on them to see the larger versions.

Spiderwick Chronicles (Special Screening)

A special Mulgarath thank you to Skott for getting two special screening tickets to The Spiderwick Chronicles last night in Boston.  We were both surprised at how easy it was find the place.  Took the T to Fenway, went through a parking lot for Best Buy, and found that its all part of the same complex.  The snow was pretty slick on the way home, but all went well.

The movie's fun, gripping, lots of great monsters, interesting family and sibling tension.  I read the first book with the kids--got it when it came out, but I haven't read the rest.  Talking it over with them today, describing what's in and what's not in the movie, there could be some why-wasn't-my-favorite-scene-in-the-movie grumbling from the Spiderwick purest camp.  We'll see.  It hits theaters for real tomorrow, starting in some at midnight tonight.  We'll all be going next week. 

Check out the tickets:

http://blackholly.livejournal.com/ | http://www.spiderwick.com/

What's up?

I know, I know, everything's on the Web, but it's a different experience when you live a few miles away from someplace, and then find that there's even better stuff about it on the web, details I wouldn't be able to get easily even on site.  So, I really don't need to live a few minutes away from Rye Harbor to know what it looks like, how deep the moorings are, that if I was coming by sea I should "pick up the Rye Harbor Morse A buoy on approach, and then follow the green buoys inside the protected breakwaters."  It's all at Marinas.com. 

I know everyone knows it, but it's still hard to believe.  Everything, it's on the Web.

Do you read GUD?  The zine with outstanding short fiction and interesting payment methods?  Check it out. 

http://www.gudmagazine.com/

Writers: Greatest Uncommon Denominator Magazine submission guidelines

I'll be at GDC at the end of February--back to back with Boskone.  (Game Developers Conference 2008: February 18-22, 2008 San Francisco).

http://www.gdconf.com/

Doll making

Spent a few with my daughter Chloe making virtual mermaid dolls.  You sort of put them together like paper dolls, select from forty different tails, hair styles, tiaras.  Yes, pretty intense process.  Here's mine--and I'm thinking where did she get the naval officer's jacket?  That's a story worth hearing, I'm sure.

Cool mapping

It's like cool hunting, only with maps.  No, it's actually about maps being cool to draw--especially maps of islands.  Here's one my son Christopher created tonight on some parchmenty kind of paper.  What I think is extra cool is that he's put "Telescope" in the legend--and looking at the map, there's one on the highest peak of Eclipse Island.  That's exactly where I'd put one, too.

Click to see the large view. 

I have been optimized

...for the iPhone, my Christmas gift from Alice.  Because I had the LSJ* down on the dining room table looking up stuff, I flipped to the page that begins with the entry for Kalos (beauty) and took a shot of my new cool iPhone.  I love everything about.  (I can even ignore the weird inset audio jack.  What's up with that?)

I love you Alice more than the 1.3 billion cubic kilometers of ocean on our planet.  (Just save me a bathtub full somewhere).  All my heroines are inspirations from you--but only the good parts.  Okay, maybe a teensy weensy bit of the bad.  But it's that fun sort of bad.  In fact, if you check out the octopus painting I did a week back, she kind of has your hair.  I just noticed that.  Hey, what do you think of blue and purple highlights?

* LSJ: Liddell, Scott, Jones Greek-English Lexicon

Prints at Etsy.com

I set up a store at Etsy.com this afternoon to sell very limited editions of some art prints.  Check it out.  I already have my first order!

http://SaltwaterWitch.etsy.com

Etsy Buy Handmade SaltwaterWitch

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Let it snow!

Coming down pretty hard.  It's been snowing maybe twenty minutes and I can't see the driveway.  Cool.  I mean cold. Drive safely out there.

http://www.weather.com

Organization for Transformative Works

Saw this at Tobias Buckell's, passing it along:  An organization dedicated to helping, growing, protecting the fan writing community, led by a board of teachers, professors from a range of disciplines, chaired by Naomi Novik.

The vision (from the site),

We envision a future in which all fannish works are recognized as legal and transformative and are accepted as a legitimate creative activity. We are proactive and innovative in protecting and defending our work from commercial exploitation and legal challenge. We preserve our fannish economy, values, and creative expression by protecting and nurturing our fellow fans, our work, our commentary, our history, and our identity while providing the broadest possible access to fannish activity for all fans.

http://transformativeworks.org

Interstitial Arts

I was only vaguely aware of the interesting ideas and work being done over at the IAF--how unfortunate for me.  Thanks to an invite from Ellen Kushner (via Facebook) to check out the Interstitial Online Salon, I've set out to find more about "art made in the interstices between genres and categories," and I encourage you too.  I've been pulled in by everything I've read so far, essays by the amazing Delia Sherman, Theodora Goss, Holly Black, Jeff VanderMeer, Terri Windling, and some of the messages going at the second Interstitial Online Salon. 

Find out more, join, participate.

http://www.interstitialarts.org

http://p081.ezboard.com/finterstitialartsfrm2.showMessage?topicID=323.topic