The mating dance of sea dragons (click the picture for a link to the article):

(Hat tip to Julia Rios for the link.)

A Steampunk Carousel:

(Hat tip to Brandie Tarvin for the link. Also check out the artist’s website.)

And a sky full of stars:

(Hat tip to NovySan for sending me the Dude Craft post.)

What was Viable Paradise like?

According to the third-century Roman senator Dio Cassius, when Emperor Hadrian attempted to give Appolodorus (the architect who designed the Markets of Trajan) some advice, Appolodorus said, “Go away and draw your pumpkins.” Hadrian did, but later, he sent Appolodorus some of his own designs and asked what Appolodorus thought of them. Appolodorus, poor man, told him. And Hadrian had him executed.

It was nothing like that. For one, nobody there had the power to have anyone else executed. Not legally, anyway. For another, the farthest thing from my mind when my work was criticized was having the critter killed. Not only did I like everyone who critiqued my work, I agreed with almost everything I heard. For the past week, though, I’ve been thinking about how to apply the specific criticisms of my submission story to my writing in general. The most common criticism I heard was, “This needs to be longer.” Or, as John Scalzi put it, “This isn’t a story. It’s a scene.” And that, right there, has been an issue in my writing all along. I write scenes. And I often fail to connect them to anything else. In other words – I don’t finish things.

That’s going to end. It’s part of the Viable Paradise Oath. “I will write,” it begins. And then it goes on. “I will finish what I write.”

There’s more, but those are the first two steps. And that’s where I’ll begin. I will write. And I will finish what I write. And I will rely on my classmates, my husband and my friends to hold me to it.

You’re all listening, right?

Had I been blogging over the last month, it would have gone something like this:

Busy.

Very, very busy.

OMG, busy.

Busy. Send help.

Still busy.

At SF Fringe.

Busy.

Please, make it stop.

At SF Fringe. Theatre good. Sean Craven and Chris Cornell cool. 21 Club oddly clean.

Still busy. Make it stop.

And so on.

You didn’t want to read that any more than I wanted to write it. Except maybe the bits about the Fringe.

Tomorrow morning, though, I’m headed for Viable Paradise (hours earlier than I anticipated).

I’m packed. I think I’m ready. Okay, I’m not ready, but I am packed.

And that’s gotta be worth something.