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For those of you who have worked with PowerPoint:
I'm working on my presentation for Azkatraz and have encountered a weird problem. I don't have PowerPoint itself on my computer, only a viewer for it, but we have a copy on my husband's computer so I've been creating the presentation over on that machine and have transferred what I have so far onto my laptop. Unfortunately, when I viewed it on my laptop, the bullets (on the pages that have bullet-points) all became the number "10" in a yellow circle. They just looked like yellow circles on my husband's machine. Has anyone else encountered this problem and how did you solve it?Current Mood:  mystified |
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This is just one of those strange days. It's a holiday for nearly everyone because the Fourth is on a Saturday, but because people will be doing their "real" celebrating tomorrow they don't generally have obligations of any kind today (going to a parade/fireworks/picnic, etc.). Thus there are all of these people out and about with a day off for no particular reason, no agenda. It's like having another Saturday this week.
I've been doing some ruthless editing, because I think the book is just too damn long to get much of anywhere with anyone. I haven't heard back yet from the one agent who's asked for the whole manuscript but I'd like to be able to provide an alternative if the verdict is thumbs down primarily based on length. So far I've heard from seven out of twelve agents, with form rejections from six and the one that wanted the Word doc of the whole book. Not too bad, I guess. But going forward, I'd like to be able to change that word count on my query letter and see if I get more bites (assuming that I don't get an agent out of having sent the whole shebang).
Today I also rode my bike down Kelly Drive to the Falls Bridge and back. The bike path along the river was pretty crowded, what with a regatta going on and tons of people down by the river jogging and walking and skating. The flock of geese has moved downriver a little ways, about fifty feet from where they were near the Playing Angels on Wednesday. While I was biking I saw this thing that I'd never really noticed before: it looked like a folding stool with a cloth seat but it was too tall to really function as a stool. There were a bunch of them down by one of the boathouses, near the start of the regatta. They're used for resting rowing sculls on when they're not being used; the cloth 'seat' cradles the hulls and doesn't scratch them. Is anyone into rowing and do you know what these things are called?
I also loved riding past the Laurel Hill Cemetary, which is just before and after where Hunting Park hits the drive; it always looks to me like an apartment complex for the dead, with the mausoleums hanging over the road, practically, stacked up on the hillside, the little Greek temples competing for space with a lone Babylonian design with its graceful lotus capitals on the columns. I just love walking around cemeteries, reading the gravemarkers, especially really old ones. They're places that are just full of history. I can't understand why, when a converted church was recently featured on Apartment Therapy, a lot of people's first response was that they could never consider living next to a cemetery.
Says the woman who writes about vampires and werewolves...
If I don't post tomorrow, have a happy Fourth, everyone! We'll be watching the fireworks from our front steps, as usual, while a sea of humanity tries to drive down our street, before everyone gives up, gets out of their cars, and just enjoys the show. :DCurrent Mood:  awake |
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...that there was an article in the paper today about famous people dying in threes? Of course, the article was kind of making fun of the idea, because how can you tell where to start and stop counting? How famous is famous? Is Michael Jackson the end of a three or middle or beginning? Where does Karl Malden stand, er, lie?
Claiming that famous people die in threes makes as much sense as the Phillies (or any other Philadelphia team) not winning a championship because we needed to put a miniature statue of Billy Penn on top of the Comcast building.
:headthud:
In other news, Rachel and I went biking down Kelly Drive today and I wanted to ride all the way to Manayunk but she was exhausted by the time we reached the Playing Angels so we rested, turned around and came back to the museum. After that she went home and showered and I ran some errands on the bike to the drugstore and grocery store, so I probably got nearly as much exercise as I'd planned if we'd gone as far as the Falls Bridge (not quite, though). She had to use Ben's bike because both of her tires are flat. A home pump wasn't very effective; I'll try taking it down to the gas station for her on Saturday.
So--today's up side is that I have more stamina than a 14 year old when biking!Current Mood: awake |
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THE PAPER IS DONE, OMG.
:flops:Current Mood:  tired |
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Just when I've finally watched Monday's and Tuesday's eps of Jon Stewart (by Tuesday it was still assumed that the governor of SC was hiking naked on the Appalachian Trail) and digested that Farrah Fawcett had lost her battle with cancer (poor thing had been suffering for a while), I'm on the recumbent bike at the gym and seeing the news on cable TV that Michael Jackson, who is the same age as my closest sister, has died.
:blinks:
Yup. It still seems to be true.
ETA: And, of course, the Metro crash in DC just occurred on Monday. And the President of Iran is still someone I wouldn't trust to be honest in an elementary school election. NOTHING IS ALLOWED TO HAPPEN TOMORROW.Current Mood:  shocked |
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That settles it. We need a "Stupid Governor Tricks" bingo card. It should include everything Ron Blagojevich ever did, plus input from the histories of Jim McGreevey, PA's own Ed Rendell, the Governator (Arnold, of course), numerous things from when Dubya was governor of Texas, and now--"Disappeared to Argentina for five days to have an affair and lied about it," courtesy of the governor of South Carolina.
Most private citizens probably couldn't get away with disappearing to Argentina for five days to see a mistress without its hitting the news when they turned up again; how the hell did this idiot think he could be the governor of his state and fly under the radar?
:headthud:Current Mood:  incredulous |
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1. If you live in the DC area and take the Metro, please check in! When I went down to visit ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) redmonster and stayed over with mrs_bombadil at her house I discovered just how fast those trains travel; at times, when we were between Metro stops, I actually felt my ears popping. I've NEVER had my ears pop on any conveyance that wasn't a plane. Our commuter trains and subways/elevated trains certainly don't move fast enough to produce this effect. Frankly, even as a veteran user of public transit, those trains kind of freaked me out. I hope no one else is injured in this horrible accident!
2. Please read kylecassidy's election platform(s) and consider voting for him in the election--I did! I mean--think about it: who would you rather have in a position like that, someone who mods an enormous comm for photographers, takes the cutest cat pictures ever and fanboys my father-in-law, or someone who posts photos of POOP on his LJ (with no cuts for the benefit of those who feel like the world shows them enough CRAP already)?
3. Chapter 1 of Undertaken is done and Chapter 2 is commencing as soon as I'm done posting this; after dinner I will polish the fifth section of the Azkatraz paper. Out of last week's six queries I have two form rejections so far, which I have documented on LitMatch. Tomorrow will see more outgoing queries. Have to keep that ball rolling...
Now, shoo! Go vote!Current Mood:  busy |
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I probably have some of the strangest viewing habits anywhere. In the last week I've been watching:
- Rent, for the umpteenth time, and Angel's funeral still guts me every time; this is why, as much as I liked Anwar Robinson as Tom Collins in the traveling show we saw, there's still no one like Jesse L. Martin as Collins. His performance in that scene is just--guh.
- Mama Mia!, which is sort of cracktastically bad and good at the same time. (When I wasn't singing along I was sort of embarrassed for a lot of the actors involved, though; except for Christine Baranski, who I think is sort of unembarrassable. Yes, THAT IS A WORD, I say.)
- School of Rock, because those kids never stop being too cool and adorable simultaneously, Jack Black is a maniac in the best possible way, and I'm a total Joan Cusack fangirl. Plus, my nephew's daughter was just in a School of Rock show this last Sunday at WXPN's World Cafe Live, on the Penn campus, and she had keyboard solos on two songs!
- South Park, Season Two (Gotta love The City at the Edge of Forever with the kid in the Star Trek uniform, whom we've never seen before, who--well, you can probably guess what happens to him. Heh.)
- Ballykissangel, Series Three (just because I love this show and miss it)
- House of Cards, with Ian Richardson, who is even better than Jeremy Irons in Reversal of Fortune, much as I love Irons in that. I've seen it before, but not for years, and we never saw the third installment, so this is a refresher in preparation for that.
- Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season Four (In which Ben Stiller actually seems to be playing the role he had on Friends, the guy who was smiling and sweet one second and a raving, frothing maniac the next. This wouldn't be so weird if he weren't supposed to be playing himself.) A tad predictable at times (perhaps because I've come to know Larry David's mindset all too well) but still fun.
I do still need to put the finishing touches on my Azkatraz presentation and work up a brief(er) intro to the topic of discussion for the roundtable, but while my queries are out there in the agent ethersphere, to avoid the mindlessness of twiddling my thumbs and refreshing my Gmailbox every 20 seconds I need to get back on the writing horse with a project having nothing to do with Moon-Bit. (They say never to work on the sequel while you're trying to sell the first book; not that it's bad luck, it's just not practical to put in more work on a particular universe until you know the first book will be picked up. The first book you finish may not be the first book published.)
So I got back to Undertaken today. My theory is that I have thirteen chapters planned for this and I think I can write a chapter a week (about 5000-7000 words). So in three months it should be finished. Technically, the first two chapters are already written, but I started doing an edited version in a notebook, which I've decided not to pursue after all, so now I'm taking the edits from paper and putting them on the computer (I've got about 5,000 electronic words so far). This morning I edited over 2300 words and will do more tonight after work.
Undertaken is really a lot of fun and very different from Moon-Bit. I especially like having made up my own town and county where it takes place. Sometimes there will even be fun footnotes about the town's and county's histories! *
* Because I kind of love footnotes that include wry asides that don't necessarily fit into the story. :DCurrent Mood: busy |
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I like this SO MUCH BETTER than the current opening for Dollhouse (even though it's the music for Angel--the pacing and editing are really good and it no longer looks like soft-core porn!)
Also--this is possibly one of the funniest things I have EVER seen. I wish I'd been watching The Daily Show back when Ed Helms was on--when the conversation between him and the academic dude gets to Oscar the Grouch I seriously lost it. :D
Current Mood: amused |
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...so I can go back in time one month, to a glorious era when I didn't know Jon & Kate + 8 existed.
:headdesk:Current Mood:  annoyed |
| » Exhaustion, querying and linkspam |
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I felt simply wiped when I got home from work today. I went up to the study, put on a CD of Vaughn Williams and lay back on the couch, listening to Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis until I fell asleep. I woke up for dinner but am still not feeling quite with-it.
Earlier today I sent out some queries into the cold, cold world of agents. Let's see what happens. I'll do some more next week.
Some link spam: things that are threatening to give me a desk-shaped dent in my forehead...
No, the person whose estate you control and who didn't leave you enough money to make you happy didn't invent the "plot point" of people taking trains to school. YOU CANNOT COPYRIGHT IDEAS. And this idea in particular is just--wow.
If you don't want to see students fooling around at a graduation you should just not go to graduation.
How can someone not understand the First Amendment to this extreme? No, really--how?
Jun. 16th, 2009 @ 10:51 pm
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| » Getting stuff done |
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Well, I've finally gotten us our tickets to and from San Francisco! I've also got us our BART ground transportation from the airport to the hotel and back again at the end of the trip. Can't wait! Who else out there is going to Azkatraz? Plus, this is a family vacation too, so we've already got tickets to the rainforest exhibit at the Academy and will have some time to do other things around the city as a family before the big activities (presentations) start at the conference. Plus, on Monday, Chris and Ben plan to visit some local college campuses Ben's possibly interested in. (I can't believe he might be going to school so far away, though!)
I've also transferred the manuscript, in two big files, to a thumb drive that I will take to Kinko's on the way to work today, to get the whole thing printed up. And then--let the querying begin! I won't ask for it to be ready until tomorrow when I'm on my way to work again; that should give them enough time to get it done, and then I can spend my day off on Wednesday dealing with the query stuff.
I would have liked to also make some doctors' appointments for me and the kids this morning, but I think that will have to wait until tomorrow. It took a loooooong time to choose flights to and from SF, not to mention working out the snarl that is ground transportation in SF. It was actually easier than figuring out how Chris and Ben were going to get to the SF State campus, which we did on Saturday. (Turns out they should take the "M", available just a couple of blocks from the hotel.) I never really thought much about it before, but compared to SF, Philadelphia's SEPTA has a FABULOUS website for trip-planning and just generally being able to find a map showing you where a given route runs. Makes me really appreciate what I have here. :D
Not that I'm taking SEPTA to work today; as long as the weather's pretty good like this (even though it's overcast) I'm walking and getting some exercise.
Jun. 15th, 2009 @ 11:08 am
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| » Angels and Agents |
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Rachel and I finished watching Angels in America, which was her first time and my second. Somehow I'd forgotten quite how wonderful this was, but something that really perplexed me was looking up the award info on Wikipedia and learning that Meryl Streep won the Emmy for lead actress in a miniseries for AiA, while Mary Louise Parker won the Emmy for supporting actress. Neither Rachel nor I understand this; we both feel that it should be the other way around, Mary Louise Parker counting as the lead actress and Meryl Streep as the supporting actress.
How very weird.
I've been revisiting The Agent List. That's the list of people upon whom I plan to inflict my query and synopsis, plus some sample pages or even chapters if that's what they say they want in their profile on AgentQuery.com. The variety of different requirements from various agents is sort of mind-boggling:
- email queries only, with no attachments
- include the first chapter and synopsis in the body of the email
- please use the electronic submission form on the website
- snail mail only, query, first 10 pages and SASE
- snail mail query, first 50 pages and SASE
- snail mail with query, summary, relevant author info and "sample material" (no clue how much)
- the same agent wants snail mail queries with first TWO chapters and SASE but only query for email
- another agent wants snail mail query, synopsis and sample chapter but just query via email
- many say only "snail mail query with SASE"
- email query with 250 words in body of email and no attachments
- another guy wants a brief query, info regarding previous pub credits and the "first few pages" in the body of the email, no attachments
- another agent wants an email query with the first 5 pages pasted in the email below the query
- someone else wants snail mail query, synopsis and THREE sample chapters, with SASE
- one person specifically wants a 2-page synopsis (I already honed my synopsis and I'm going to send the 5-paragraph one I developed for everyone else)
- a few people specifically want QUERY in the subject line, most don't say
- Hardly anyone specifies what font they prefer for manuscripts but one out-of-step agent actually specifies Times New Roman (Sorry--I'm getting this printed up in Courier, so you won't get TNR unless I send you the MS electronically)
- One agent is adamant about converting your file to RTF first before copying and pasting the first 5 pages into the email, to get rid of weird formatting and characters
- One agent asks for the first 2-5 pages, unlike everyone else who wants nothing but a query/synopsis or a minimum of 5 pages
And that's only from a sampling of 54 agents I'm planning to pester at this time. (Not all at once, obviously.)
What I'm not completely understanding, though, is how anyone ever gets OUT of the AgentQuery.com database. There are a number of agents who aren't taking queries at this time--okay, they're still in there because they might start taking queries again and that tag can be changed for them. Still a little annoying to have to scroll past so many of those. But then there are the ones who just--aren't agents anymore. It actually says in their database entry, "This person is no longer an agent." So why are they in the database still? I also don't see much point to the ones who aren't with an agency anymore and therefore have no contact info; nothing, no snailmail or email. If they aren't reachable, even if they've gone independent, what's the point? I'm not exactly going to be able to send them my query through the Psychic Friends Network.
But the most inexplicable one was the listing for the guy who actually DIED in 2005. His entry says both that he passed away in 2005, and then, further down the page, "This agent is no longer taking queries."
Gee, ya THINK?
Jun. 13th, 2009 @ 06:23 pm
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| » Done! |
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I'm not only done my final edit on Moon-Bit (clocking in at 170,000 words), I'm done revamping my query letter and synopsis and am ready to query those agents! Woohoo!
To celebrate, I am going to vegetate by watching all four episodes of Stephen Colbert from this week.
Here, have a picture of Paisley lounging about above where I'm working. :D
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Paisley Likes her Box
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Jun. 12th, 2009 @ 10:16 pm
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| » I'm surrounded! |
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I'm surrounded by sleeping kitties this morning.
( Kitty picspam under the cut )
Next: My list of things to do, and hopefully just seeing this written out will mean I get it all done instead of feeling like, "Oh, God, I can't. Okay, going back to bed..."
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Read through/edit Chapter 24
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Make hotel reservation for Azkatraz (before the room block expires!)
(The room block was sort of still available--I had to book us into the Fairmont for Wednesday and Thursday nights but got us into the Parc55 for the rest. Which just means that we're really doing fantastic at filling our hotel room block, w00t! And, you know, it'll be such a hardship to stay at the Fairmont for a couple of nights--not. :D)
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Read through/edit Chapter 25
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Prepare the bills I need to mail today (mortgage, credit card, Sprint)
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Read through/edit Chapter 26
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Go on Sprint website and order new phone for Rachel, whose cell is slowly dying
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Read through/edit Chapter 27
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Pay Verizon bill online
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Read through/edit Chapters 28 & 29 (because 29 is kind of a coda and is only 500 words)
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Get ready to go to work and mail bills on the way
Optional: Do a little dance because I'll be finished the read-through and can now tweak the query and restart the query process!
I won't even get into what sort of to-do list I have once I reach the office...
ETA: Oh, crap. I have to leave for work in ONE HOUR and I've only gotten the first two things done. Argh. The problem is, I had to pretty much figure out my complete Azkatraz schedule before booking the hotels, so I'd know when I had to book for. At least now I know how much time I can spend volunteering, doing touristy things with the family, etc. It had to be done sometime. But now I have to skip more editing in favor of getting the bills ready because--well, you know. Bills. Crap again.
Jun. 11th, 2009 @ 09:05 am
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