Who the heck do I think I am?

My entry in the blog is up:

BAF Blog

If you comment you could win a .pdf of my story from the first BAF anthology.

It's been a busy week with lots of time on the road.

Thursday - left Boston for Rochester.
Friday - left Rochester, met beatricedwinter for lunch (AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SIS!) and then proceeded to War Practice.

War Practice was WET. But it was also WARM, for a change. On Friday there was a lot of Scotch. On Saturday there was carbonated wheat beverage that failed to qualify as beer.

Sunday - broke camp and went to Pittsburgh. Fwump. grouchyoldcoot made delivery food happen. Watched the rest of the 5th season of "Weeds." (I've decided that "Weeds" is sort of my televised, x-rated version of "Twilight" for those who read that - it's 100% crack, and thrives on the "OMG, I can't believe they're going there!" factor.)

Monday - drove back to Rochester. Had dinner with our friends Mike and Toby and their grandson, M, who has officially entered foster care with family friends of theirs who live locally, as opposed to fostering in New York City. Complicated story - short version is that their daughter had some trouble a few years back and is not available at present to raise her 18-month son. He, however, is a cutie, and while he's no J, he's tracking just fine for his age, developmentally. He spent about ten minutes standing on my driver's seat checking out every available gauge and button and feature of my car. Adorable.

Tuesday - drove back to Boston. More fwumping.

I am still exhausted, but I must gather trash today and also the mighty hunter must capture milk. And I have an audition this evening. So, gotta get that ready. Oh, and apply for a bunch of jobs.

Other news:

Ticket saga, part II: Monday morning, we got a call from the Pittsburgh CLO. The tickets were returned as "undeliverable" - even though the address and zip were correct. So the lady from the office is hand-addressing them and will try again. If they bounce again, I'll just have them hold them at the box office, which all things considered is probably the easiest option, anyway.


And my parents. Okay, so anyone who has met both of my parents can probably agree that two more different people do not exist. It still mystifies me how they ever got married in the first place, but whatever. But occasionally they do things that show a glimmer of that sameness. For example, I called my mother on Sunday after confirming Monday's dinner, to let her know the plan. We talked briefly and hung up. Thirty seconds later, she calls me back. "What?" I ask. "Nothing, except I realized I forgot to say I love you."

Now, lemme stop here for a second. I don't have a problem telling the people I love that I love them. But I also don't think it's necessary to do so at the end of EVERY CONVERSATION. This is a point of contention with my mother, especially, who seems to think that if she doesn't tell me I will forget that it is true, or think that her affection has shifted. And conversely, that if I don't say it, it means somehow I have stopped. Um. Well ... no.

Okay, so Mom calls me back for the express purpose of making sure I know that she loves me. Yeah, I got the memo the last time, but thanks, Mom. I love you, too.

At some point, I got a message from my father, informing me of his schedule for the next few days (Outer Banks chillin'). Again, fine - no problem, I'm not nearly as worried about knowing where he is as he is about making sure I know. He says in the message that there's no need to call him back - so I don't.

Monday evening, he calls (right after we got back from dinner, actually - and at the very beginning of "Chuck") and during the conversation, he says, "I realized that I forgot to say I love you last time we talked. And I thought I should clear that up."

Yeah.

My parents, they are so weird. I told my mother. She laughed.


And finally, check it out:

BAF 3 is on Amazon!!!

Whoo-hoo.

I'll be doing a reading / signing in Auburn, MA, on June 12, but unfortunately I will not be at Balticon this year. (Though if you are going to Balticon, there's a bunch of fun stuff planned for the launch party.)

This has been a rather intense week. And no, I'm not cutting it. So there.

A short while ago, I offered to record a bunch of audio narration files for a pervasive game that flourish and a friend of hers were working on, called Civilite. The narratives took several locations around the MIT campus and transformed them into 19th-C. Parisian locations. It was so cool-sounding that I asked if I could play in the play-test.

And I did.

But it came on perhaps the busiest week I've had since I've been back after Christmas. Arisia was last weekend - convenient, in one sense, as it was just up the street from MIT, but also resulting in much walking and many late nights. Then this week, I had rehearsals every night, including two for the Weston gala performance last night, plus the gala itself, and plus there was voting this week (which did, like, no good, of course), and a few other miscellaneous errands (groceries, etc.).

On the upside, I did a LOT of walking this week, so it was good for me to get out and be active.

On the downside, it sapped a lot of energy.

I didn't suck at the game, but it was hard to not have easy access to the campus at all hours, as some of the other players did. I at least managed my planned double-cross expertly, though it's interesting that the character's post-game story included some negative consequences, though the character still survived and managed to escape to a less illustrious existence. That's not so surprising, though, considering some of the goals of the research study component of the play-test. Ethical choices and pressures, indeed. I am not really all that burdened with those. ;^D


I also did really well all week with the dieting - mostly because I was out and didn't spend money on any food while I was out, and didn't have time for anything more than micromeals before going out again - and then of course, this weekend. Blown. Spent a lot of money going out with the cast of the gala, too, but well, that was social, at least. Must get back out of the habit of drinking, as it more than doubles the bill. Diet Coke is just fine without that shot of Jack in. I don't need a margarita, either. (Although I *WAS* good Friday and had a salad instead of dessert, but Saturday we had cheesecake and brownies and I split chicken fingers with another cast member. Today? Leftover cake, sigh. Cheese and crackers for dinner. then a piece of cheescake for dessert. Must resist the tray of goodies leftover from the show!)

(There's a fun story about Victoria's Secret in here, too. I tried to find a better undergarment for my dress, being nearly backless. And Amy and I took one look at VS's "solution" and proceeded to construct one... for about $2.25 in materials and five minutes' sewing, instead of the $50 it would have cost for a bra and this little halter thing! Yeah.)


I had to make a mad dash to rehearsal tonight. For the second time since we started! Oy. I swear I read the schedule, but all I saw for tonight was "Russians and Bottle dancers." I didn't see the "Work Scenes 1-6 with principals" that was written *ABOVE* "Russians and Bottle Dancers". Oops. Luckily I screamed out there and made it in about 20 minutes. Narg.


But I got some interesting news today, too. Two of my SPN stories have been nominated for "No Rest for the Wicked" awards. I'm not sure what that is, but there are some cool folks nominated in various categories, like musesfool and copperbadge so I guess I'm in good company. The fics are Sometimes a Day Goes By for angst and The Children's Hour for best gen. And that's really interesting, because a. they're both older stories, and b. I don't even think TCH is my best gen fic. I don't know if there's a word limit, though, and most of my better stuff is longer.

I also don't know what I'm supposed to do, other than respond to "accept" the nomination. I'm a little new at this, getting recognized for writing, that is. It doesn't happen often.


Alternity continues to be awesome, if a little slowish. I know that events will pick up soon, though, so keep reading it, if you are! (And if you are, let us know? What do you think of how we're doing? We'll keep going, but a little feedback does help on occasion....)



Job search is nowhere. It's hard to stay motivated. I have callbacks for "The Final Battle" to prep this week (due the 30th!) and I dunno. Other stuff.

I guess that's pretty much the state of the Gwen right now.

I don't think it's entirely coincidental that over the past few years, every time I have found myself at a potential crossroads, there happens to be an MIT media studies conference I've gone to at just about the same time.

- Futures of Entertainment was two weeks after I left Mount Auburn
- MiT5 was two weeks after I was back out of work from BIDMC (after working briefly in the Surgery department), and two months before I started working there again
- MiT6 was this weekend (and we know that things at work are...less than stable)

( I have a bunch of reactions to this year's Media In Transition conference. )

( My biggest, best thinky-thought this weekend )

I also have new ideas about methodologies to provide assistance to visually impaired readers (i.e., online users) and the transformative nature of vocal interpretations of fiction (i.e., fiction readings, which are themselves performances); the relationship of kennings to poetic mnemonic devices (and linguistic pattern-building); bards in a simultaneous role as performers, memoral agents, and editors; the history of reading aloud (and its relationship to dramatic performance vs. person-to-person file-sharing vs. transformative interpretation); sound and signal and the patterns of reception; collective memory and objectivity vs. immersive experience; and the effect of encapsulating specific stories within and without a fixed point in time as a device to create "safe" viewing distance; the status of queer (and queered) representations and interpretations and their future; and the selective process by which we choose what matters (and what lies outside the realm of the mainstream).

But those are posts for another time.

Just heard from Ben Bova books. The "In the Hunt" book is coming out very soon. Our copies went in the mail (yay) and they've launched a website for it... with the essays reprinted from supernatural.tv:

http://www.smartpopbooks.com/supernatural/essays.html

Heh. Yup, that's me in that third slot there.

I guess I should catch up on this season, huh?

Senior editor Danielle Ackley-McPhail and Marietta Publishing would like to announce that Bad-Ass Faeries 2: Just Plain Bad has been selected as a Finalist for the 2009 EPPIE Award in the Anthology - Complete Category.

This is the second time a Bad-Ass Faeries title has finaled this year, as the first volume, Bad-Ass Faeries, finaled for the 2007 Dream Realm Award in July.

Congratulations to the contributors for this well-deserved honor:

James Chambers
Bernie Mojzes
Trisha Wooldridge
Christy Tohara
C.S. Haviland
L. Jagi Lamplighter
Elaine Corvidae
Den C. Wilson
Skyla Dawn Cameron
Lorne Dixon
Steven Earl Yoder
CJ Henderson
Brian Koscienski
Chris Pisano
Danielle Ackley-McPhail
Lee C. Hillman
James Daniel Ross
Steven Mangold
Jason Franks
Phil Brucato
John Passarella
Jeff Lyman

The winners in all EPPIE Categories will be announced at EPICon, March 2009, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Congratulations to all those that finaled across all categories. (A full list of finalists is not yet available, but will be posted on the EPIC website shortly.)

Best regards,

Danielle Ackley-McPhail



W00T.

I woke up at 4:30 this morning when the storm front came in and there was a message light on the Sidekick.

To tell me about this:



Mother's Day was named a Supernatural Fanfiction Awards Featured Story for June (don't ask; they're apparently a little behind).

Isn't the photomanip pretty? Tells you what you need to know.

What a neat surprise.

Hi, all.

So, my big_bang post goes up on June 26th. I've been tweaking it fairly continuously for a while and I'm fairly happy with it as-is, but it's big and major and I'm feeling wibblish.

It's in the hands of one beta, but I know she's having a really tough couple weeks and I'd love another opinion before posting.

It's long - 43,000 words - but it reads fairly quickly. Anyone up for a sneak peek?

Danielle's getting technological:




Great Escape - one of my favourite movies - on AMC. Apart from being pan&scan and having odd commercial breaks, it's fairly good mindless entertainment, but I'm thinking of crashing early. Soon as my hair is dry enough to braid.

Ty-ered. Did get out of the house for a bit today. Took HPEF's printer (which has been acting up) to Circuit City because it's still under warranty; was told to contact Lexmark directly. Will do tomorrow. Then I went to Off Broadway Shoes - much like DSW but with slightly different selection - and tried on multiple pairs of shoes, including a really nice brown walking pump and an incredibly comfy Puma trainer. And bought neither - too expensive. Then walked to Marshall's and found a fab pair of Converse All-Star hi-tops for $15 less than the shoe store. Score. I've been needing a new pair - my second pair of fake ones have been falling apart since before I wore them in Steppin' Out and the workout from the show didn't help them any. I may have even tossed them out already.


Oh, and PSA time: As of Sunday, there are fewer than 10 tickets left for the Dessert with Jim Dale at Portus. So if you're waiting to get your ticket, NOW's the time!

Unfortunately, we continue to have server issues with the website, but the LJ Community is running.


Still looking for volunteers as well....

Off to do more Portus work.

OMG, done. Ish.

The draft is done, the summary and the draft are *sent* to the email. Awaiting confirmation.

ACK. I didn't even have time to re-read the whole thing. I've never sent in a draft this...drafty. The windows are wide open and the breeze is blowing through.

But. It's 10 minutes to SHOW and I can still start packing tonight! Whee!