The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Vera:

Fantastic advice here, all of it. :-) A couple of additions I would recommend, from my own long-time experience running various large con parties is:

1) Have plenty of single serving bottled water, both sparkling and flat. Many people have drinking restrictions (aclohol, sugary drinks, etc.) and water is the one default everyone can agree on.

2) You will need to plan ahead as to where to procure your groceries. They come in two types - perishables and not. If there are any locals (and yes, you will need drivers and address of that Costco or other market), the locals might save you money and time by driving up non-perishable stuff like chips and bottled drinks. These same drivers may be counted on to do a grocery store run and pick up that fresh veggie and cheese platter, etc.

3) If your party has a theme, you will need to have decorator minions, balloon blowers, etc, in the room at least an hour to two hours ahead,

4) Having plenty of flat surfaces is important. And not just for setting out snacks, but for those handout and promo and other themed materials you may be giving away, etc. Stacks of books might need holders or shelves.

5) Cater fancy dishes, if possible. Such as themed cake with a magazine cover imprinted on it, etc. If not possible, skip them.

6) Supermarket (Costco and such) sushi platters are a fabulous hit and go fast.

7) Save all your receipts!

There is probably something else but can't remember it right now, this is way comprehensive as it is.

Hey, see many of you in a day or so in Anaheim! :-)

Happy Happy Happy Belated Birthday, Teresa!!! :-)

Technically I am not a vegan but an ovo-lacto vegetarian.

In reality I eat eggs maybe once or twice a year, strictly for breakfast at convention hotels, I never drink milk, but I do eat cheese often, but not all the time (also watch for rennet in the cheese culture and don't buy the animal rennet kind).

Thanks for bringing this topic up, because honestly I had no idea about chalk, probably because I don't see how or why I would consider eating it. Would I eat it? Probably not. Would I go into convulsions if I did? Probalby not. :-)

But in general my philosophy is simple -- as much as is personally possible, I eat things that do not contain dead meat of any living creature, or have caused suffering to other creatures in their preparation. There are probably exceptions, since I am not perfect, but in general, I will not eat anything from the animal kingdom.

Animal by-products, such as honey, are possibilities, but since I don't like honey, this is irrelevant.

I do not use gelcaps, but if forced, will open them up and simply drop the herbal contents of the gelcap on my tongue, no matter how revolting. :-) The gelcap shell gets discarded.

No leather, of course, or anything I learn may have an animal part in it. No jello, marshmallows, etc.

So, I guess the only animal product I have the most difficulty forgoing is cheese.

Been vegetarian for over 20 years now, and who knows, maybe one day. ;-)

I agree wholeheartedly. Just read SPIN last week, and it is a an amazing book -- a rich human story, true sense of wonder, and an incredible panorama of scientific extrapolation. And, the ending is not a copout either.

It's got my vote.

Oh my, that story was just hilarious, thank you, thank you! I needed a laugh, a real not an LOL kind of laugh. ;-)

Jon Carrol makes an excellent argument.

Indeed, the death penalty is a tragic archaism. It is out of place in a society that values humanism above all else.

Thanks for a lovely post on roses, Teresa!

I have so many varieties here in the yard (pretty much everything I could locate at the local Home Depot which is affordable while the nurseries are not), including the ones you mentioned, and I do think you are absolutely right, the ones you noted to be more healthy and hardy tend to do so much better overall.

Interesting that you mention this suffix thing....

I have a primary character in my current novel in progress, AIREALM, whose name is Tion which is short for Fluctuation. His sister's name is Bili which is short for Stability. However, both names are sort of crucial to the plot and I can't (nor do I want to) change them.

If this novel ever gets submitted to Tor, I hope you won't mind. :-)

Teresa,

All I can say is, thank goodness this was a dosage issue! *worried*

Ray Radlein,

The fanfic link is working fine now. :-)

And so are all the other www.travistea.com links.

Go look, enjoy! Plenty of goodies, and we're almost done with the whole site.

Here is a better link directly to the LA Times article about ATLANTA NIGHTS.

Not sure how this bypasses subscriber registration, but I found it referenced in a couple of blogs via Google.

Daniel,

Let's just say that there are very many fun things you can do with text justification. . . . :-)

Teresa,

Yes and thanks for verifying! :-)

Teresa,

My we use this quote of yours below either on the front of the ATLANTA NIGHTS book cover or inside?

"The world is full of bad books written by amateurs. But why settle for the merely regrettable? Atlanta Nights is a bad book written by experts." -- T. Nielsen Hayden

And now, the back cover of ATLANTA NIGHTS is rich with blurb-a-licious goodness!

Look here to see the blurbs.

As a severely non-sports-clued person, I humbly appreciate that explanation! Wow! I now have a glimmer of understanding of what everyone is talking about. *grin*

Just a glimmer, mind you. ;-)

This is a fun conversation!

I personally like the secondary and tertiary non-pure colors. They remind me of jewels and natural crystals, hues misted over....

Colors have been of particular importance to me for a while now, as an artist, and also as a philosophical basis for my novel LORDS OF RAINBOW. Some of you might have seen the "Lords of Rainbow meme" all over LiveJournal and elsewhere, so, here is a personality color quiz I've created, that you might enjoy:

Tilirr Color Quiz

This started out as a marketing promo tool for my novel, but sort of took on a life of its own as a personality profiler.

Ok, this is rather awkward:

My mother fell in love slowly. She was wooed by his large gesturing hands, by the way he said, "complements of the house," and by how he looked at her when he thought she wouldn’t notice.

First of all, wrong vocabulary, should be "compliments" not "complements." And that whole "wooed by his large gesturing hands" is creepy in a Kafkaesque way if taken literally.

Hmmmm.

I believe this is a beautiful, living post and a reminder that I love you all -- not in the mushy empty cliche sense that has become associated with the word "love," but in the way of simplicity and human connection. :-)

What I'd like to know is, what kind of bizarro world does this Jane Doe Author live in, that getting a $150K advance and then an $80K, etc, is to her an indicator of midlist?

If I were to be offered a $20K advance per book, I'd be well satisfied. Now that's what I'd call nice, solid, maybe even upper midlist!

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