A Christmas story for you

World of Adventures - The Flower Kings

I don't think I'll be posting again before Christmas, and likely not before the end of this year. For that matter, I have no idea if I'll be posting much next year either unless something significant changes in my career, because how many more posts of "this is what I'm doing now" can you all stand to read? If you really want to know, I have Twitter for that and you can follow me as ianthealy.

In the meantime, here is a special Christmas story.

I hope you enjoy it.

Upon a Midnight Clear by Ian Thomas Healy.

Second draft down

Mercy - Duffy

I finished the second draft of Troubleshooters tonight, based upon the valuable feedback and comments from those few First Readers who managed to get their stuff back to me by Dec. 1. Final score for this round: I cut out approximately 5500 words, from 118k down to 112.5k. I have just under four weeks to finish the third draft, which I call the Clean 'n' Polish. I'll probably lose another thousand net with this, possibly more as I clean up and tighten the narrative and eliminate the evils of passive voice.

I've set my personal deadline for January 15, which gives me half a month to get one more round of quick crits from my crew. Then it's off to submit to ABNA '09 and start my next project, which will either be finishing the first draft of The Archmage or finishing the SuperSekrit Extra Cheesy Edition of The Milkman.

But for now, I sleep...

Not 99 problems

Hardest Geometry Problem In The World - Mark Mothersbaugh

I'm taking this meme from Citizen of the World instead of posting something substantive.

1. Started your own blog (I've started a few blogs and had as many as four at one time. Now I just have this one and the one for my webcomic)
2. Slept under the stars (not without a tent)
3. Played in a band (It was called Freedom Toast and we recorded a CD. I've shared some tracks on this blog before)
4. Visited Hawaii (I hate flying, so I doubt this one will ever happen)
5. Watched a meteor shower (It's easy to see meteors up here because we're so much closer to them)
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world (been to both, and liked Epcot Center better than both of them)
8. Climbed a mountain (um, hello, I live in Colorado...)
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo (I'm usually a better harmony singer)
11. Bungee jumped (you have GOT to fucking be kidding me)
12. Visited Paris (Never been to France)
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea (Never been at sea)
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch (HTML coding is an art form, isn't it? I coded my own website)
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning. (The most memorable time was during a vacation when my wife, my baby son, and I all got it at the same time)
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty (Never been to NYC or nearby environs)
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train (My family once took a train to upstate NY for a family reunion)
21. Had a pillow fight (who hasn't?)
22. Hitch-hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill (I play hooky, yo)
24. Built a snow fort (Growing up, we had the best backyard for stuff like this)
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping (The first time was in high school with Mandy B. RAWR!)
27. Run a marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice. (I've never been to Italy either)
29. Seen a total eclipse. (both solar and lunar, yo)
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset (I've done both. They're prettier here than most places)
31. Hit a home run (I only hit a baseball once in Little League and it didn't go very far)
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors (I've been to Ireland, and it's as green as they say)
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language (again, I'm saying HTML counts...)
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied (I'd like to have enough money to get by without juggling first...)
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing (not with ropes, but I've gone)
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David (only pictures)
41. Sung karaoke (never been DRUUUUUNK enough to do this)
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt. (I've never been to Yellowstone. Yes, I know, I'm a bad resident of the Wild Wild West)
43. Bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant (no, but that's kind of a neat idea)
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight (only once)
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted (who'd want to paint me? I'm fugly)
48. Gone deep sea fishing (I don't really like boats, so this is unlikely to ever happen)
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain (also the snow, the wind, and the fog)
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater (there's one near my house - I didn't go this summer but have in years past)
55. Been in a movie (not knowingly)
56. Visited the Great Wall of China (never been anywhere in Asia)
57. Started a business (and it failed. Technically as an author I've started another one...it hasn't failed yet because I'm too stubborn to pack it in)
58. Taken a martial arts class (I studied Arnis de Mano, Kalaripayit Silambaam, and Shaolin Kung Fu for several years)
59. Visited Russia (Let's face it; I've hardly been anywhere)
60. Served at a soup kitchen.
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies (Does eating them count?)
62. Gone whale watching (Sea World counts!)
63. Gotten flowers for no reason (I've never gotten flowers)
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma (I did regularly in college when I was broke)
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp (never been anywhere in Europe except the British Isles)
67. Bounced a check (well, technically I don't use checks...but yeah)
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy (I still have all my LEGOs)
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial (Not been to D.C. either)
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job (Pizza Hut. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get fired from Pizza Hut?)
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London (I was there, but we didn't get to see them)
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle (does a motor scooter count?)
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person (I'll have to do this one without my family for complicated reasons)
80. Published a book (The Milkman, with signed copies currently on sale this month)
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car (I guess even though it was a year old it wasn't previously-owned)
83. Walked in Jerusalem
85. Read the entire Bible (Anyone who knows me might find this hard to believe)
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life (I believe I have, but really have no way to know)
91. Met someone famous (I have met several famous authors - Jim Butcher springs to mind - and once smacked Roger Ebert's belly accidentally in a used record store)
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one (I've lost all four grandparents and my first cat)
94. Had a baby (I helped)
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake (I'm pretty sure I have when I was much younger)
97. Been involved in a law suit. (I was part of a class-action suit against Netflix. LOL. I also put my name on the list for the antitrust suit filed against amazon.com for their blackmailing tactics against POD publishers and authors)
98. Owned a cell phone (I've owned many. I'm pretty hard on cell phones because I'm a frequent texter)
99. Been stung by a bee (only once, when I was driving up into the mountains to go hang out with a friend in high school)

If you want to play, leave me a comment so I know to come stalk you. Cut and paste, bold the ones you've done.

Getting into more Trouble

The Killing Moon - Echo And The Bunnymen

I'm busy ripping music and editing Troubleshooters. It's going faster than I'd expected or hoped, given my recent computer difficulties and the depth of commentary from my First Readers. I had thought I wouldn't be ready to submit it to ABNA '09, but now I think I'll be able to after all. With two four-day weekends at the end of this month, I think I might get through the latter two thirds of the 2nd (post-First Readers) draft, and then I still have January for the PnP (Primp 'n' Polish) draft. I'm anxious to get this one out onto the query trail as soon as possible.

Of bricks and beams and plates and things

21 hours and counting

You should listen to this piece. It's beautiful and only two minutes long.

Well, I've now spent 21 hours rebuilding my laptop, from reinstalling data to downloading and installing open source applications. I haven't switched to Ubuntu over Windows yet, although I did try it out. I'll save it for my next computer when I can install all the software once (in the Ubuntu environment) instead of in both Ubuntu and Windows. I am now using OpenOffice instead of MS Office and am quite pleased so far. In case you're wondering what other neat stuff I'm using now, it includes JK Defrag (the most thorough and best defragger I've ever used), Media Player Classic (instead of messing with Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, etc. etc. etc.), DVD Shrink (for backing up DVDs and no, you don't get a link since this one is kind of gray market), CD Burner XP Pro (for burning CDs and DVDs), PDF 995 suite (for PDF creation, dissection, and manipulation), Audacity (for audio manipulation), and GIMP (for image creation and manipulation). This last one is kind of daunting, because I need to learn how to use it well enough to produce my webcomics within the next day or two, because after Friday I'm out of new strips! Wish me luck...

As far as data goes, I recovered nearly everything related to my writing. I lost some edits on Troubleshooters, but wasn't that far into it. I lost the original document of Pariah's Moon but can recreate it from the .pdfs. I lost some miscellaneous pictures and roughly two-thirds of my music collection (about 6000 tracks went bye bye). That last one hurt, but not quite so badly since I have a lot of it on CD. I just have to find the time to rip it all. Again.

Had this been an actual emergency...

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blogging for this important announcement:

My hard drive committed spectacular suicide earlier this week. I am currently rebuilding a functional computer from the scraps and leftover pieces I remembered to back up. Please bear with me.

Business as usual going on here

Special Announcement!!

Do you want to get someone a special, unique Christmas* gift this year? I'm pleased to announce that I am selling signed copies of my book The Milkman for 20% off the list price throughout the month of December. They normally retail for $15 (includes domestic shipping and handling) but in December, a copy of The Milkman autographed by Yours Truly will only set you back $12! Domestic shipping and handling is included!** So get one today, because I have a limited supply and when they're gone, it may be 2009 before you'll be able to get another one***. Visit Scenic www.ianthealy.com**** for details or just go straight to the Store.

*Or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or Martian Earwigs Solstice - we accept all types here
**International shipping rates vary - contact me for a quote
***Sale pricing valid for all orders received before midnight, December 31, 2008
****It really is very scenic