Technical Difficulties

You should all go look at the ABSOLUTELY FREAKING AMAZING series of pendants elisem has made based on my story "Katabasis: Seraphic Trains" (in Somewhere Beneath Those Waves), which in turn was based on Elise's necklace "Why Do You Linger?"

Seriously. Go look. Right now.

ETA: LINK FIXED. GO LOOK.

1. My Storytellers Unplugged post for January, "Taking Another Tilt at the Windmill," is up. It's about fantasy, science fiction, and genre theory.

2. I was woken up this morning by a call from the sleep clinic. While the irony is bright and shiny and very pointed, I am glad to know my GP went ahead and made the referral, because I was going to have to call him today to tell him to do so. RLS is evil.

3. Gynecologist appointment also today, in which we agreed to try taking the Mirena out, and see what happens. (Taking it out was about 5 MILLION TIMES less painful than putting it in, so that was good.) The Mirena lessened my menstrual flow, but it made my periods MUCH too frequent, and it also randomized my menstrual cramps so that they became like drive-by stabbings. Double-plus ungood, thank you.

This is a new-to-me gynecologist, and I like her. She asked if I wanted to keep the Mirena. (I did.)

4. RT @pnh Elise, about to be Discharged, manifests as a Figure of Allegory and asserts Control over Time. http://yfrog.com/h7eieaj

5. It is snowing. Nevertheless, I plan to go to the pool in another hour or so.

6. ursulav is right on the money.

elisem has a post collecting the dragon story cycle that matociquala and I seem to be writing about/with Elise's dragon-titled jewelry. yuki_onna has also posted today about a piece of Elise's jewelry, in this case octopedal rather than draconic. And I'm posting a list of all the stories I have written and am writing for Elise's jewelry:

PUBLISHED

• "Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland"
  
• "Sidhe Tigers"
  
• "Wait for Me" ("Why Do You Linger?")
  
• "National Geographic On Assignment: Mermaids of the Old West" ("Mermaids of the Old West")
  
• "Draco campestris"
  
• "Katabasis: Seraphic Trains" ("Why Do You Linger?")
  
• "Letter from a Teddy Bear on Veterans' Day"
  
• "Somewhere Beneath Those Waves Was Her Home"
  
• "Under the Beansidhe's Pillow"
  
• "Rhino Carries the Moon"
  
• "After the Dragon" ("Healing Is Not About Pretty" and "After the Dragon, She Learned To Love Her Body")

IN PRESS

• "Ashes, Ashes" ("Why Do You Linger?")
  
• "Why Do You Linger?"
  
• The Goblin Emperor ("Engineering for Elves")

IN PROGRESS

• "The Skyscrapers of Bianch'Elen" ("Spider's Rose")
  
• Dark Sister ("Spider's Rose")
  
• the Booth story about the electric chair ("Healing Is Not About Pretty")
  
• the walking-back-from-Mordor novel ("Healing Is Not About Pretty")
  
• The Sidhetown Tigers ("Sidhe Tigers," "Eating the Dark Flower")
  
• "Dragons of Earth and Sky"
  
• "Yes, No, Always, Never"

PHOTO REFERENCES

• "Draco campestris"
  
• "Healing Is Not About Pretty"
  
• "Letter from a Teddy Bear on Veterans' Day"
  
• "Rhino Carries the Moon"
  
• "Sidhe Tigers"
  
• "Somewhere Beneath Those Waves Was Her Home"
  
• "Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland"
  
• "Why Do You Linger?"
  
  

Would I still be writing short stories and novels if I'd never met Elise? Yes, of course. But these stories would never have been written. And my life would be immesurably poorer.

My story, "After the Dragon," is live at Fantasy Magazine--and also as a podcast, read by Sarah Tolbert.

The story comes, in part, from elisem's sculptural necklace, "After the Dragon, She Learned to Love Her Body," and that is, in part, why it is dedicated to her, although there are so many other reasons I can't even list them.

elisem is committing art again. I have bought a pendant, "Yes, No, Always, Never," because it is absolutely an illustration for Corambis. Which is freaky, because Elise hasn't read Corambis yet.

Also, for those of you optimistically playing along at home, this means that it is suddenly much more likely that the story about Cardenio Richey, the Principia Caeli, and a serial killer in the Lower City will (a.) be written, (b.) feature the Kalliphorne and her husband, and (c.) be titled "Yes, No, Always, Never."

Jeez. I kind of have an endorphin rush off that.

elisem is having an instead-of-Wiscon-dealers'-room sale, and she's gone kind of nuts on the markdowns. Shinies! Go covet!

For the Nine Things about Oracles meme.

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NINE THINGS ABOUT ORACLES

1. No take-backs.

2. Blood is an acceptable currency. So is hope.

3. You can find an oracle anywhere, if you look hard enough. It doesn't have to be a sacred cave, or a sacred grove. Playgrounds can be sacred. So can supermarkets.

4. Yes, the smell is horrible.

5. Come barefoot, or don't come at all.

6. The priests and the pimps may tell you that you need them to talk to the sibyl for you, but they're liars. She can hear you just fine.

7. Seven is sacred, but it has no power.

8. The sibyl will not meet your eyes, and you don't want her to.

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9. It's never what you ask for.

elisem is having a sale. Support an independent artist! Do your axial tilt shopping! Even if the person you're buying a present for is yourself!

Also, if you are a shiny-word rather than a shiny-bead fan, I should point out that Elise is also selling copies of Glass Bead Games, with stories by me and matociquala (including the Hugo-winning "Tideline"), poems by Jane Yolen and Beth Meacham, Haiku Earring haikus by Betsy Lundsten and Ariel Franklin-Hudson, an introduction by Lois McMaster Bujold, and (in case the shiny beads are also a draw) beautiful (hand-tipped!) photographs of Elise's jewelry (with and without their people) by David Dyer-Bennet and Sheila Perry. Limited edition of 300 copies; Elise says they're about half gone. At $25, this is honestly something of a steal.

Heather Corinna--she who took my fabulous author photo, if you're playing along at home--has posted the incredibly beautiful pictures she took at Fourth Street of Elise's jewelry and their people.

Now that I've picked my jaw back up off the floor, here are the links to the photos of me (as much for my reference as anything else):

Healing Is Not About Pretty (this one has at least three stories in it)--and again (and, okay, how phenomenal a photographer is Heather? she can make the fact that I have my eyes closed look intentional)

Why Do You Linger?--and again

Rhino Carries the Moon (I love the fact that I'm out of focus and distracted--I think my hair is coming down--but Rhino is sharp and perfect and beautiful)--and again, this time with me as the distrait Gothic governess--and one more time

Three Letters from a Teddy Bear on Veterans' Day--and again

Sidhe Tigers

Draco campestris

Somewhere Beneath Those Waves Was Her Home (which--hey!--I just mentioned earlier)--and again

Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland

elisem, who is an artist of fabulousness, is having a sale. A Really Good Sale.

Click on the link and go be tempted.

(Also, Glass Bead Games is now available for general pre-orders. All of the fiction and poetry in that chapbook, btw, come from Elisian jewelry. Not merely beautiful and amazing, but also deeply inspiring.)