I suppose I should throw a party or something but to be honest the whole thing ended in a somewhat anti-climactic way, considering it collided with teaching and getting an agent. But yeah. I applied in 2008, started in 2009, and here I am, 2012, done, with a 3.5 GPA. It looks like I’m going to be donning my cap and gown come June 15th.

Yay me.

The list of plants we planted:

• lavender
• serrano pepper
• chocolate mint
• lemon thyme
• chives
• Italian basil
• sage
• marjoram (from seed)
• catnip (both a plant and from seed)
• chamomile (from seed)
• cucumber (from seed)
• butternut squash
• pie pumpkins (from seed)
• brandywine raspberries
• tulips
• African iris (my favorite flower)

• celebrity tomatoes
• sugar plum tomatoes
• sunsugar tomatoes
• sweet 100s (tomatoes)
• eversweet strawberries

• and a lime tree

Holy crap, I didn’t realize how much we’d planted until I wrote it down. Here’s hoping most of it turns out edible!

Really stoked on the quote from Jeff VanderMeer, author of Booklife and previous manager of BookLifeNow.com:

I’m thrilled that Morgan and her crew are taking over Booklifenow.com and giving it a breath of fresh air. I think it’ll be an essential resource now for years to come.

Here’s hoping we live up to that!

Donny: [enters a room] Look guys! It’s safe!
DM: Hang on a sec.
Donny: Look, guys! It may not be safe!

Donny: afk, exchanging gifts for anniversary
Group: O.O
Donny: It’s just a five-year wedding anniversary.

MrMike: Yes. She actually went into the kitchen and made breakfast, rather than see what the commotion was.
Me: I was hung over.

Donny: What about cookie-making elves? Are they in the trees?
Me: [gasp] Cookie trees!
MrMike: We are not hunting cookies on this delve.

Me: I vote we set up a guard, because sleeping is the time when I get attacked by spiders.
DM: You won’t get attacked by spiders.
Me: You didn’t promise I wouldn’t get attacked by something that ISN’T a spider.

Me: He’s putting up a DM screen. Shit gonna get real.

Me: Damn, Jarrod, you’ve been rolling crap tonight. Are your dice macros even right? Check your modifiers.
[several long moments of silence]
Jarrod: FUCK! I’ve been rolling d10s this whole time!

DM: Well at least you all know where your skills aren’t — namely: tracking — and you’re all just charging blindly forward. Well done.

DM: Remember, talking is a free action.
Me: GANKA YOU’RE FULL OF SHIT.

DM: Anyone know what you’d roll for “Detect Bullshit?”

[after several rounds of running/tracking]
Me: Anybody feel like we’re in the desert level of Zelda?
Jen: Little bit.

DM: So we’re just abandoning stealth?
Donny: I’m a clanking dwarf with a sun in my hands. How stealthy can I be?

Jen: I’m going to follow Hotaru because she seems to know where she’s going.
Me: I DO know where I’m going.
Jen: And she has a nice ass.
Me: I DO have a nice ass.
Chris: I would just like to point out that my character is a female, and I like compliments too.

[DM encountering the word "brazier" for the first time]
DM: It’s a flaming… brassiere.
Me: I swear to God, it’s not pronounced like that.

MrMike: Unfortunately, as a DM, I’ve got too many other things to do to make porn jokes.

DM: This is a well-rounded team. How the fuck did we do this?
Zach: I would like to remind you, you provided 2 chars.
DM: I know. I hate myself.

DM: Yes, you obliterated the animal you were considering making a pet. Good job.
Me: Hey, I’m an artificer, I only deal with robots.

Me: I vote that the dorf who is made of hit points goes through the door first.

Me: [Arcana Check]
DM: No magic is on that door.
Donny: Good enough for me!

DM: Roll perception checks. That’s how you learn.

Alex: You always pushed the clean kids, right?
Me: Yeah, that’s what school was like for me.

Me: Apparently a 23 is insufficient perception to detect MASHY SPIKE PLATE.

Alex: [rolls a 23 on perception]
Me: What if it’s a mashy spike plate?
Alex: You only live once.

MrMike: I just stabbed Alex with the cat.

DM: What, you’re just going to punch random stones?
Alex: How do you think I got to where I am today?

Me: Oh man. Remember how we all left Donny for dead that one time?
MrMike: Eh, everybody in that party is probably dead by now.

DM: So you failed to notice it was covered in blood?
Alex: We’re just so used to blood now.

Donny: I’m going to push the button with a long, pointy object.
Alex: WINK.

DM: It’s not covered in dwarven blood or elven blood.
Me: Or eladrin blood… No, wait! I haven’t been stabbed! YES!

DM: There appear to be grooves in the wall.
Me: Bewaaaare the GROOOOOOVE!!

DM: That is a shitton of damage.
Alex: It’s like I’m a striker!

MrMike: Yes, I can do that. I am the DM, and I say I get to do that.

[MrMike brought my char's hp to zero]
DM: If I ever play a game where you’re DM, you’re going to kill me in 2 rounds.
Me: Sounds about right.

Me: You really liked Donny’s character when you were a player.
DM: Yeah, I did. I see why Glenn dropped him off a bridge.

DM: Caprice’s not here to record it, so we’ll need a volunteer to record all the funny bits. Luckily, I don’t think we’ll be very funny tonight.

Zach: I say we all walk in a straight line, so we end up on the same side, or we’re all dead.

DM: Give me just a second to figure out how the Gish works.
Jarrod: It can cling to walls, right?
DM: Uh… sure.
Jarrod: Never played gish?
Zach: What is a gish, even?

DM: …Now, that’s an excellent question. Technically they aren’t on the same team, but your attention is divided, so I’m going to say Jen is flanked.
Jen: I don’t think anyone asked that question!
DM: I’m going to say they’re flanking you.
Jen: …ow.

Donny: [going on about his attacks, with music playing in the background]
Jen: You’re watching Harry Potter, aren’t you?
Donny: Yes I am!
DM: Did you get that just from the music?
Jen: Of course, because I’m awesome.
DM: Hold on, I have to tell Caprice about this.

Zach: [misclicks an attack with the side effect of being able to shift an ally]
Jen: OH PLEASE CAN I SHIFT OH PLEASE OH PLEASE
Zach: It’s not even my turn! I mis-clicked!
Jen: …aww :(

DM: That shouldn’t have a save built into it. Jen, make your saving roll.
Jen: *rolls a 1*…Can I take his roll?
DM: Not that it matters, but no.

DM: Ok, now please save better.
Jen: [rolls a 4]
DM: …that’s better, but not better enough.

DM: Somehow you guys have lucked out in having the two bosses beating the crap out of each other.

Jarrod: Because I used an action point, she’s prone until the next turn…
DM: She’s better than prone, she’s dead.
Jarrod: Aww!
DM: She’s bloodied, weaked, prone and dead. That good enough?

Donny: When I touch people, they feel much better afterwards.

DM: Ok, roll to break out of the grab. It should be a guaranteed break.
Jen: *rolls a 7*….guess it’s not guaranteed.
DM: I refuse to believe that your acrobatics is that low.
Jen: My acrobatics is at 5, my athletics is 4! This is the sheet you gave me!
DM: …yes, yes it is. Sorry.

Technovation

Well, unfortunately, the girls are a little behind. This is largely because we have double the class size and not enough people to help. Kind of what happens with these gigs. I’m optimistic that they can catch up, but it won’t be easy. Still, most of them seem really excited and eager, so here’s hoping they make it to pitch night!

So technically I should also be talking about week six. Why am I not? Well…

Dayjobbery

Oh, sheesh. You ever have one of those days where everything you touch breaks? That’s been me since last Wednesday evening. Everything that can go wrong is going wrong. Thankfully my boss seems pretty understanding about this. Still. It’s to the point where, after 15 hours of fighting with systems to validate a bug fix (one. freaking. line.) I finally finish, so happy, so elated, and then I go to check it in, only to be denied access to the code repository. I threw my hands up and shouted, “Oh, come on!“

Wednesday I got hit with a customer issue that kept me at work for a solid ten hours, wherein I was lucky to grab half a sandwich and a pop tart for sustinance. As a result, I missed teaching on Wednesday. And I was pretty mad about that, because I’d done up some awesome slides, and I was ready to get the girls motivated to kick ass and take names. I understand that my absence caused chaos. Sadface.

Noveling

Uhm, well, I have seven scenes for-sure set up, they’re all in a row and start at the start, so that’s pretty good. I’m working on getting my MC to Earth without killing too many people and keeping my MC from punching too many faces, and I think all both of my blog readers (hi) know what a challenge this is for me, so I’m chugging along there, slowly but surely. The first time I wrote this novel, I didn’t outline at all, I just sort of went for it. I’m hoping an outline fixes a lot of the problems I have in the least-painful way possible.

Do I talk about my book in terms of titles and names? I’m not sure what’s the protocol here. I mean, who knows if the names will stick, right? If this thing gets sold, editor could be all “who the hell names their main character a verb, stop being weird” and then this post will make no sense. Basically I over-think everything.

At least I don’t have to worry about the swearing yet. Yet.

I first started getting srsbdnz about writing back in early 2008, and I decided I’d actually try to get my stuff up to publishable quality and learn about how to get it published. However, I had no idea what to do for that, what a writing career looked like, nothing. I knew it entailed writing and then editing, but outside of that, I had no clue. So, I researched. A lot.

I researched writing a query letter, as is evidenced by the post I made on the topic over at Inkpunks. I made a spreadsheet on agent research, meticulously organized and incredibly detailed. One hundred and seventy-five agents on the list, who claim to represent either YA or science fiction (or in some rare cases, both), with information about how they check out on Preditors and Editors, Writer Beware, and Absolute Write’s Bewares and Background Checks forum. I checked out client lists, read interviews, and generally kept my ear to the ground on this kind of stuff. And after all my research, Barry Goldblatt wound up being on my very short “dream agent” list.

I also researched how to approach an agent. I mean, I’m an adult who pays taxes, so I know the basics of social interaction. At least, I’d like to think I do. But I don’t really know how to act like a professional outside of making deadlines and ensuring my shirt doesn’t have a stain on it. (And as I check right now, whipping up this blog post at work, I see that I have a stain on my jacket. Oh well.) But what about having a manuscript ready? How do I talk about it? Do I talk about it? Is having your manuscript with you at a convention considered professional or desperate? I, as a noob, simply didn’t know where to begin. So, I researched all of this too.

What I mean to say is, this is how I roll. When confronted with a new thing I’d like to do, it’s probably about six months of quiet research before I even start talking about it. Writing was like this. Buying my condo was like this. Going to grad school was like this. It’s just what I do.

So there I was, in 2010, wee little unpublished author who’d done her research on the industry. I knew how it worked. You write a novel, you polish it as much as you can, you write a query letter, you send out queries, you gather rejections, lather rinse repeat until someone wants to represent you.

Instead, this is what happened.

First of all, I never had a finalized query letter for my book. I was working on it as of WFC2010, but hadn’t really finished anything. I had a little pithy logline but that was about it. I figured I’d be querying in about three months or so. And then, Christie — who is seriously one of the most wonderful and generous people in the world, guys, you have no idea — offered to introduce me to Barry. And I was like “What? Wait… what?”

I had done a lot of research. I thought I was prepared. I was not prepared.

On Saturday night of the convention, Christie tells me she’s gonna make this shiznazz happen. And I, being full-aware of my social awkwardness, decide now, at about eight in the evening, is an excellent time to drink enough to not worry about looking like a fool, without consuming enough to actually look like a fool. It’s a very precise science, you see.

By one thirty in the morning, I’m stone-cold sober, and it’s introduction time, so obviously that worked out in my favor. All my nerves are back in full flail. I’m in the bar talking with friends, and being all fiddly and staring at my shoes, while Christie is attempting to introduce me as a totes legit professional-type, or something.

Paolo: You okay?

Me: Not really. That’s Barry Goldblatt and Christie’s trying to introduce me to him and I’m really nervous and I don’t know what to do and–

Paolo: Oh, FFS.

And then Paolo shoves me over. I nearly faceplant right in front of him, then I catch myself and nearly run smack into him, only to stop where I am clearly crowding personal space. I take a step back, brush off, and try to make like nothing happened. We exchange greetings and such, and I’m totally passing myself off as a competent adult, until about a minute in when I say something which proves beyond a reasonable doubt that I should not go anywhere unsupervised:

“I’m sorry, I haven’t had enough vodka for this conversation.”

(I still can’t believe I said that, out loud.)

Since then we’ve chatted a lot and I gave him my home-made pumpkin butter and we’ve talked about having Opinions about things and my frayed bunny-like nerves have been soothed a fair bit from that initial introduction. I gave him my novel, he gave me a rewrite request, I rewrote it, and while it still requires work, he’s extended an offer for representation which I’ve gladly accepted, my response toggling between “I’m a totally legit professional” and “SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

So now blog posts are likely to be a lot of me whining about editing my novel. Hope you don’t mind, all both of you who read my blog!

So week 3 was good. We discussed how to identify what market segment you’re in, surveying potential customers, profiling your typical user, things like that. I brought up that when they think about who their user is, they should think about users who might need certain enhancements to better use their application, such as a large text mode, a colorblind mode, things like that. I think the girls heard me on that one, which is good. This is something I try to think about when I do things.

The best parts are the emails and comments I get from the girls. Some of them are really excited about this program, and about tech in general! One girl has contacted me about how to get more into tech and maybe even get an internship somewhere. Another girl asked me about being a writer, and that was pretty cool. I’m stoked about how well this whole thing is going.

We have this week off, and we’ll be back next Wednesday with another session.

So the girls spent this week brainstorming and working out problem/solution statements and getting an idea of what their market research should look like. The challenge for this year is Science Education, which most everybody took very literally. They were thinking biology, chem, physics, the hard sciences. I also heard a lot of “nutrition app” suggestions. So we encouraged them to branch out a bit, think about what they liked and were passionate about, and then look for the science of that.

The girls are great. Some of the people who are helping facilitate this thing are… perhaps not so great. Lots of “personalities” to go around. I’m not going to go into detail, because, you know, google. Let’s just say that we all know which of the adult participants is in need of a massive attitude adjustment. I think some people lose sight of why we’re really here: the girls.

My poor co-instructor got caught in horrible traffic, so I was on my own for the first hour, and I was really only prepared for the half I was supposed to present, not the whole thing. I winged it liek woah. Apparently it wasn’t that obvious, though, so hooray for me. I had a moment where I wanted to apologize in advance for how unprepared I was, but luckily my previous experience in public speaking (mock trial, mock government, speech and debate) has stuck with me. Never apologize in advance. All you’re doing is priming the audience to look for your faults. Act like nothing’s the matter, and most people won’t even notice.

So, that’s basically how it’s going. Next week is all about figuring out who your customer is, which is really exciting, because I’m going to get to bring up accessibility which is a topic near and dear to my cold, black heart.