Gerald Brandt

President Obama on David Letterman

I had a wonderful opportunity today.  I was able to take off and spend the day alone.  I brought my laptop, worked on The Courier and started working on the undo/redo code for my WordStar clone: WordTsar (though I may change that name).

I also brought some free range chickens to Ev and Rob in Winnipeg Beach, and spent some time on the shores of Lake Winnipeg.  A wonderful and restful day.  Thanks Marnie!

Charles N. Brown, 72, Locus publisher, editor, and co-founder, died peacefully in his sleep July 12, 2009 on his way home from Readercon.

I’ve been a subscriber of Locus for quite a few years now, and his columns were always informative and entertaining.  From my understanding of Locus, Charles was the heart and soul of the magazine.  I hope it can continue without him at the helm… it would be a wonderful legacy.

SFWA is reporting that author David Eddings (the Belgariad & Mallorean series) has died.  I greatly enjoyed his books.

Edit: Never, ever post when you’re so sick you can’t even think straight.  Even I can’t make sense of the gibberish below.  I’ll leave it as is as a stark reminder of how close true madness lies.

What a life.  Last week, I didn’t make a weekly links post since worked 24 hours out of the 48.  This weekend, I decided to visit my brother in Calgary.  I took a day off of work, leaving on Thursday and I’ll be back back home on Sunday.  Thursday was okay, but by the time Friday rolled around, I was as sick as a dog.  Here it is, Sunday, and I’ve spent most of the day in bed.  I’m not even going to describe these links today… I’ll get back to them when I feel better.

http://thedarksalon.blogspot.com/2009/03/welcome-guest-blogger-jack-kilborn.html

ttp://blog.oup.com/2009/03/science-fiction/#more-3858

http://lifehacker.com/5195999/portable-ubuntu-runs-ubuntu-inside-windows

I missed my weekly links last week, I only had 2 links to share.  Pretty sad.  This week is no better really, but here ya go anyway.

Writing

- You can see a video interview of Joe Abercrombie talking about his new novel Best Served Cold on YouTube right now:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

- Joe Blow Neopro.  A series of articles Tobias S. Buckell wrote for Speculations, just after breaking into writing short stories, selling his first novel, and finding a small measure of attention via his blog:

Misc

- The New York Times has an article this week on ‘Why Her Paycheck is Smaller‘.

- Sydneysider Matthew Sheil has built what could easily be one of the most elaborate big boy’s toys in the world, and his efforts have earned him a Guinness world record.

Philip José Farmer passed away peacefully in his sleep yesterday morning.

He will be missed greatly by his wife Bette, his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, friends and countless fans around the world.

January 26, 1918 – February 25, 2009. R.I.P.

Writing
The David Gemmel Legend Award will be presented for the very first time in 2009 for the best Fantasy novel of 2008. The award will be given to a work written in the ‘spirit’ of the late, great David Gemmell, a true Master of Heroic Fantasy.  I’ve been a David Gemmel fan for a long time.

Bain Books is having a short story contest.  The theme is to ‘Write a short story of no more than 8,000 words, that shows the near future (no more than about 50-60 years out) of manned space exploration.’

Jane Lindskold define what she thinks Hard Fantasy is.  An older article by Marie Brennan can be found here.

New York Times-bestselling urban fantasy author Carrie Vaughn has posted an excellent three-part essay about urban fantasy:

• Part One: The Formula
• Part Two: When Things Go Wrong (Pay careful attention to Item #5!)
• Part Three: Deconstructing Urban Fantasy

The Fantasy Magazine blog has a feature on Taboos in Speculative Fiction.

Computers

The WolFire Games blog has an article on why you should support Mac and Linux when writing software.

Your Money or Your Life, a comic about programmers.

Google used its booth at Macworld this year to show off some of the things it was working on with Apple, particularly for the iPhone. But the coolest thing at their booth didn’t have much to do with Apple at all: A hacked Nintendo Wii Balance Board (from the game Wii Fit) used to control Google Earth.

Misc

This is a timelapse map showing the spread of WalMart across the US.  Scary stuff.

Science

I’ve taken a recent interest in Quantum Mechanics and found this video on you tube with Robert Anton Wilson describing Quantum Physics in layman terms.

Blog

And last, but certainly not least, a t-shirt that makes fun of those of us that blog for only a small handfull of people.

I figured I’d write a post about what I accomplished in 2008.  This is it.  I’ll also add what I hope to accomplish with each item in 2009.

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WordSlinger Beta released.  WordSlinger is an Integrated Development Environment for writers.  It’s geared towards the way I write, although I’m looking at integrating some users wishes into it.  In 2009, I’m hoping to bring this up to release quality and get it out into the world.

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Moved my computer systems from Gentoo based servers to Ubuntu, as well as my desktops.

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Got interviewed as a stay-at-home dad for Sharp magazine

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Went to Ghana, Africa for two weeks.  (Yes, it was an accomplishment)

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Went to the World Fantasy Convention for the first time.  I’d like to go again in 2009.

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Started updating the blog weekly with a list of links I’ve found interesting.

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Completed The Courier and got a couple of copies out to first readers.  I’ll touch it up, work on a Query, and get it out to agents in 2009.

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Stopped being a true stay-at-home dad.  I accepted a job that still allows me to be the primary caregiver to my kids (essentially I’m home whenever the kids are).  I was lucky to find a forward thinking company.  My work load has increased a lot, but so far so good.

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BuildMaster Beta released.  BuildMaster is an application that does nightly builds of software projects.  It notifies users on whether the builds succeeded or failed, and if they failed, what the issue was.  For 2009, I’d like to get this finished with a nice web page to report status, and some sort of data storage on the backend to show the history of builds.

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Boy, when it’s listed out like that, I feel like a pretty lazy guy.  Where did all the time go anyway?

What are some of your accomplishments this year?

I’d like to wish everyone a Happy New Year, and I hope everyone brought in the new year the way they wanted.  We did.

I’m starting the new year with a new writing project, title currently unknown.  I’ve shipped off The Courier to a first reader, which means this will be it’s second reading by someone other than me.  Based on the feedback I get, I’ll maybe make some changes, and then send it out to 5 or 6 second readers.  The Courier took alot longer than it should have.  When I let the manuscript rest between revisions, I let it sit too long, far too long.  And while it rested, I didn’t do any new writing.  That’s a mistake I won’t be making again.

Once I outline my new project, I’ll start on a Query letter for The Courier, complete my agent research, and send the darn thing out to agents.  I’ll keep everyone up to date on that progress.