Joss Whedon on 826NYC - Listen and DONATE!!

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Have to be quick here - I'm on a break at my new job (yay!)

Just learned that Joss Whedon (the creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Angel and, most recently, Dollhouse) gave a great interview on his writing/work process with This American Life's Ira Glass recently over on 826NYC. This organization is dedicated to:

826NYC is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6-18
with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers
inspire their students to write. Our services are structured around our belief
that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention and that
strong writing skills are fundamental to future success. With this in mind we
provide drop-in tutoring, field trips, after-school workshops, in-schools
tutoring, help for English language learners, and assistance with student
publications. All of our free programs are challenging and enjoyable, and
ultimately strengthen each student's power to express ideas effectively,
creatively, confidently, and in his or her individual voice.

You can listen to the entire interview via streaming audio HERE - it's really entertaining!

Please note that you can also donate to 826NYC's mission from that same page - if you support the goal of teaching creative writing to children, please donate $5, $10 or whatever you can spare to this great cause.

Thanks Ira and Joss and thanks to everyone out there who chooses to donate!

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Thus spake...

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OMFG... this is the funniest thing I've ever heard that almost simultaneously killed me.

Strauss... as performed by a grade-school orchestra. Be sure to crank your speakers. Seriously.

Enjoy.



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It. Has. Begun.

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UPDATE for fans of the Blood Magic books!

Now that I'm employed once again and the awful monkey of unemployment is off my back, I've decided to begin Blood Magic Book 3! That's right - we'll all finally learn what happens to Kirin, Lia, the Mor and everything/everyone else!

I never set out to write a fantasy trilogy (that most hackneyed of literary conventions), and yet here I am, contemplating just that. In case you don't know it, the first Kirin Book (Blood Magic) was originally written to be completely stand-alone, and I thought I'd ended it in such a way that no sequel was required or even possible.

Then Paula Guran, my then-editor at Juno, asked me specifically if I had a sequel in me, and seeing as how she was offering to purchase it on nothing more than an outline and her confidence that I could finish it, I decided to give it a go. Book 2 (Nights of Sin) came out better than I could have dreamed, and I'll be forever grateful to Paula and Juno for the opportunity to write it. Now that Juno has been acquired by Pocket Books, there's little chance that Book 3 will be released under the Juno imprint - too bad, but that's just how these things go.

So... what's in store for Book 3? Well, for one thing, I know I'm going to return to the back-and-forth chapter style that I used in Book 1, but rather than alternate past/present events as in that book I'm going to use a shifting POV (point-of-view) between Lia and Kirin. I thought that this would be interesting since (IMHO) Lia's viewpoint and opinions have been sort of given short shrift in the previous books. So far, researching her unique voice and her interpretations of events chronicled in Books 1 and 2 has been very entertaining for me.

Also, you can definitely expect a final explanation of the Mor's reasons and motivations. Why did they invade? Why do they fear humanity? Why do they particularly hate Kirin? Where exactly did humans come from and where might they be going? Who or what is Ico,the Imperial Wizard? All this, and more, will be explained by the last page.

Hopefully this news will come as a welcome thing. I think it will, given the mail and messages you, the readers, have sent me over the past two years. I'd encourage you, as I always do, to mail me at imagox@yahoo.com if you have any lingering questions.

Wish me luck!

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Burning Man

I've been wanting to go to the Burning Man celebration for over a decade, mainly because of descriptions like this.

Money quote:

The truth, though, is that Burning Man is an ideal place for self-reflection and self-transformation, whether substance-aided or not, and as someone who's just gotten back from his 8th Burn, Lambert's revelation didn't surprise me a bit. Friends of mine have changed their names, their professions, and their entire lives at Burning Man. And not because they were stoned or tripping, but because Black Rock City -- the temporary city (built and erased within a month) where the event goes on every year, the week before Labor Day -- has a tendency to expand horizons, reveal possibilities, and question the assumptions most of us make about how we're supposed to live our lives.

Image credits...


Maybe next year. Hope so...

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Stuff Christian Culture Likes (Also For Amy)...

Ran across this blog site and thought I'd post a link up. It's Stuff Christian Culture Likes, a list of oddments and analysis about, well, "stuff Christian culture likes". The author seems well-suited for this task:

I sort of consider myself an expert on Christian culture as I am a preacher's kid and I'm also married to a preacher's kid. Christian culture is funny because it doesn't have much (if anything) to do with Christ himself.

Overall very funny and occasionally bittersweet and cutting. My favorite so far? "Leaving Perturbed Comments And Signing Them 'Anonymous'" (because that happens here all the time, too).

Amy fave might just be "Coffeehouses" (ask her about it one day!).

BONUS: Of course... (sigh)...

Recommended!

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Rockabilly (For Amy)

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This is for Amy...




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My girlfriend and I bought a house back in June and have been renovating it. It's a 20's-era house and we're decorating it in 50's era retro, a style she and I both love.

While looking around for stuff, I hit across a wonderful gallery of portraits taken by Jennifer Greenburg documenting the "Rockabilly" sub-culture. Not only are the photos amazing, but the rooms in which the subjects pose become equally important and fascinating characters in the min-stories the portraits tell. Great stuff!

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EMPLOYMENT!!!

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Good news!! I've received a very handsome offer from Yodlee, a Silicon Valley software company, to work for them as a Product Manager. I've been talking to them for weeks now, and it seems as if they feel I'd be a good fit. I'm spending the morning filling out paperwork and working through the details of the offer letter, but it looks like, barring any 11th-hour madness, I'll be employed in the 14th of September!

Thanks to EVERYONE who has sent me emails, calls and support messages over the last 6 months - they really helped. Also thanks to Greg McCrery, who I used to work with at CheckFree, for getting the ball rolling via your recommendation at LinkedIn - this never would have happened without you!

Back to work!!

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"Oligarh(y)" - UPDATE!

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Apparently, Glenn Beck tried to explain the "missing C" in "oligarChy" the following day on his show. Keith Olbermann at MSNBC promptly pulled out a big can of "allow me to respectfully disagree", to wit:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Oh well, at least someone is amused by this.

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