Woke up at a ridiculously early hour for a Saturday (6:30 AM), and have mostly been catching up online. Both here and on Facebook, people are talking about what a cold morning it is. I just opened the blinds to discover that what I thought for a moment was frost on my balcony railing is actually ice. The neighbor's roof is all frosted over as well, and it's gray and foggy outside. I had this idea I might take a walk this morning but perhaps I'll skip it for staying inside and warm.

I know it's really winter when I start using the snowflake icon.

In feline news, Sophie has stopped treating Spanky as a spooky stranger, and they're friends again. She's expressed some curiosity about his poor ear, but I'm watching to make sure she stays away from it. She is otherwise up to her old tricks, straddling his back and cleaning his neck and shoulders. He is indulgent...until he's not.

Night before last, I finished reading Thirteen and a Day: The Bar and Bat Mitzvah Across America by Mark Oppenheimer, a survey of Jewish rite-of-passage culture in America. Oppenheimer's got a congenial narrative voice that carries the reader through the book at a pleasantly informative pace. He travels the country, attending b'nai mitzvah in search of the essence and the state of the phenomenon, from Connecticut to Alaska to the Deep South, discovering children, adults, converts and gentiles participating in ritual and reflecting on what it means to be Jewish and b'nai mitzvah today. The author is thoughtful and insightful on the subject, at his best, I think, when he dives deep into what he's observed and how it translates to a larger American and religious experience. I quite enjoyed this book and recommend it.

I want to post about my emotional and intellectual reaction to the book a little more later, in light of a) my own bat mitzvah, b) recent personal experience and c) in light of mcjulie's recent series on her religious evolution, but I want to process my ideas a little more.

And now, on with the day. A hot shower and a toasted bagel await me.

By request from garyomaha, a new caption contest! Usual rules apply. I'll collect captions in comments here (at both jlake.com and jaylake.livejournal.com) until I get bored with it, then build a voting poll, once I'm far enough off opiates to stitch that pseudocode together. Please try to limit the length of your entries or they may become truncated in the poll code.

Prize will be two of my books to the winner (depending on availability), plus, as always, bragging rights. Have fun!

The photo in question:



© 2009 M. Lake, all rights reserved.

Your Saturday moment of zen.



Roadside art outside of Taos, NM. © 2006, 2009 Joseph E. Lake, Jr.



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

When you guys don't see me online for a while, it's usually because I'm swamped with some deadline, and this last week has been no exception. Added onto all of that is that I'm going to be getting married soon. Like, within the next few days. So, a lot of those last minute details have been keeping me busy and adding onto all the other stress this week! Craziness.

I fly out of town tomorrow to an undisclosed location for my wedding and will do my best to send Twitter and Facebook updates. While I'm out of town, I have come up with a very tough challenge for some of you to work on. It was inspired by this: the lolcats version of New Moon. If you're a fan of Twilight and lolcats (by which I mean the actual internet cats, not my fiance's user name), then you can appreciate the skill that went into that.

So here's what I want. I want someone to make a lolcats version of one of my books. If you're not familiar with lolcats culture, lingo, and all that, this may be something you want to avoid. But if you think you've got what it takes to hit the high points of one of my novels, then you can win some exciting prizes when I get back from my wedding adventures.

Here are the rules:
1. You may pick any of my books you like
2. Entry must contain no more than 25 pictures (but can certainly have less)
3. Obeying picture copyright laws is your responsibility
4. Post your entry on your own website or blog and then list the link here in my comments. DO NOT post your pictures here, or your entry will be deleted.
5. lolcats generally don't get into too much profanity, but if in doubt, mark your link with a NSFW when you post it here
6. Open to the U.S. and beyond

Again, check out the New Moon link above to get a feel for the style, and then get cracking with Adobe Photoshop or whatever your program of choice is. If you're a total lolcats newb, I recommend checking out this site for examples and lolcat lingo.

Contest ends 12/8/09 at 11:59pm Pacific time. The winner gets an "augmented reality" hardcover edition of VA, plus three other books of choice from my backlist (which now includes the Immortal anthology and an ARC of Succubus Shadows).

Runner-up can choose between a hardcover VA or a Succubus Shadows ARC.

Have at it, and have fun!

Spanky this evening...

Next day the older one said to the younger: "Last night it was I who lay with my father. Let us ply him with wine again tonight, and then you go in and lie with him, that we may both have offspring by our father." So that night, too, they plied their father with wine, and then the younger one went in and lay with him; but again he was not aware of her lying down or her getting up.

Thus both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father.
(Genesis 19:34-36, New American Bible)

Another six months, another five bucks and change in royalties from On Writing Horror.

Soon, that bottle of vitamins shall be mine!

Abram's wife Sarai had borne him no children. She had, however, an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar. Sarai said to Abram: "The Lord has kept me from bearing children. Have intercourse, then, with my maid; perhaps I shall have sons through her." Abram heeded Sarai's request. Thus after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, his wife Sarai took her maid, Hagar the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his concubine. He had intercourse with her, and she became pregnant. When she became aware of her pregnancy, she looked on her mistress with disdain. So Sarai said to Abram: "You are responsible for this outrage against me. I myself gave my maid to your embrace; but ever since she became aware of her pregnancy, she has been looking on me with disdain. May the Lord decide between you and me!" Abram told Sarai: "Your maid is in your power. Do to her whatever you please." Sarai then abused her so much that Hagar ran away from her.

The Lord's messenger found her by a spring in the wilderness, the spring on the road to Shur, and he asked, "Hagar, maid of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?" She answered, "I am running away from my mistress, Sarai." But the Lord's messenger told her: "Go back to your mistress and submit to her abusive treatment. I will make your descendants so numerous," added the Lord's messenger, "that they will be too many to count. Besides," the Lord's messenger said to her:

"You are now pregnant and shall bear a son; you shall name him Ishmael, For the Lord has heard you, God has answered you. He shall be a wild ass of a man, his hand against everyone, and everyone's hand against him; In opposition to all his kin shall he encamp."

To the Lord who spoke to her she gave a name, saying, "You are the God of Vision"; she meant, "Have I really seen God and remained alive after my vision?" That is why the well is called Beer-lahai-roi. It is between Kadesh and Bered.

Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram named the son whom Hagar bore him Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.
(Genesis 16, New American Bible)

I've been teasing you all for a while, well...I can't wait anymore...I have to say something or I'll burst...


I have an agent.

That's not a misprint. You don't need to get your eyes checked. I have representation for myself and my "first" novel Winter's Discord.

You can imagine that I had a lot to be thankful for this year.

Who is my agent?

Brendan Deneen of Fine Print Literary Management.

It's awesome.

How did this all happen?

( My Story )

Poor Eddie Fatu, most widely and recently known as Umaga, is dead at the age of 36.



The variation on the "wild" Samoan gimmick was fraught with peril of all sorts, but somehow he made it work. Mainly because he never dropped the act, even when just on the fringes of the shot or in a tag-team match. (He wouldn't just patiently wait for the tag.) This looks like another painkiller-related death. Two heart attacks at 36, after being released from the WWE after failing a Wellness test and, reportedly, refusing rehab.

Wishing I kind of was on an island....

Well, let's see. My mental acuity has returned sufficiently for me to track complex conversations over extended time periods, specifically between one medication cycle and the next. Just today I've begun experimenting with extending (slightly) the time between medication intake, which is the first step in weaning myself off the opiates. I'm starting to be pretty seriously bored, also a good sign. My walking range is beginning to extend now, walking a mile in 25 minutes this morning without ever stopping to breathe. And I can play Sudoku again, which has long been a sort of mental marker for my state of stress and ability to focus.

On the down side, I still can't read worth a damn. Even tracking a decently long article on the Web is tough. I continue to have no interest in picking up books. This is only my second attempt at a blog post since leaving the hospital last Sunday, as even that much narrative awareness is only available to me in fits and starts.

Over the next week or three I'll try to document my hospital experience. We're definitely in the anticlimax right now, that trough between surgery and the pathology report. Next Monday morning, calendula_witch and I go in to see the thoracic surgery team, then the oncologist. We'll have the last stitches on the drain port taken out, followed by a discussion of the chemo path. shelly_rae will be in town Monday midday, and the three of us will spend some time sorting through what it all means.

Right now, I don't know. And I won't even have a glimpse until then. All the grief and terror is still out there. It's just waiting for another turn of the wheel, for the business of the moment to come spilling out like blood on sand.

This has been a tough road, in all the obvious ways and in more than a few non obvious ones as well. I don't suppose it will get any easier, though eventually losing the 'busted ribs' sensation from the chest incision will be helpful. Details to come, as I understand or can recall them. For now, suffice to say my hospital experience was good to excellent, the food wasn't bad, and friends and family really came through.

I swear I'm getting back on this horse. One stirrup at a time. There's just a freaky lot of stirrups here.

I'll leave you with a thought. Not so long ago, the single overriding sensory impression of hospitals, at least in my experience, was the smell. Nothing has an odor quite like the damp, disinfected, bandage reek of a hospital. Lately, though, the quality of the cleansers has improved. Or perhaps my nose has been stunned with age. Because now my single overriding sensory impression of hospitals is the beeping. Literally two or three dozen different alarms which beep in the nurses' stations in the halls outside the rooms. Different volumes, keys, pitches, tempii. It's a symphony for one-note sonics, written large across my waking dreams and sleeping thoughts.

That noise will follow me all my life, I suspect. When the time comes, please don't wire my coffin for it, ok?

Meanwhile, I leave you with ( this cheerful image of me eating in the hospital. )

So far I've come...

I just received another blurb for Chasing the Dragon from an author whose work I admire so much. Check it:

"Chasing the Dragon moves like a bullet. As blood-soaked and thunderous as a Sergio Leone western, and grimly referential to classic pulp horror, Kaufmann turns the screws and steadily escalates the tension. A gory, thoroughly rollicking thriller--not to be missed." -- Laird Barron, author of The Imago Sequence and Other Stories and Occultation

For those of you who ordered the sold-out limited edition hardcover, copies should be shipping soon. And of course, for those of you on tighter budgets, Chasing the Dragon will be available as a trade paperback in March 2010 at your local bookstore (provided said bookstore is in Canada, the U.S. or the U.K.; anywhere else and I'm afraid you'll have to purchase online). If it's not on the shelf, I'm sure they'll be happy to order it for you.

Chasing the Dragon will also be released as an ebook for those of you who enjoy reading on your Amazon Kindle, iPhone Stanza, Sony eReader, Barnes & Noble Nook, or leftover Rocket eBook Reader from 1999!

The Mystery Writers of America (MWA) has stepped up as the first to put its money where its mouth is over the Harlequin Horizons/DellArte Press debacle with the following announcement. It's interesting to note that MWA's actions, quite appropriately, offer protection from consequence to Harlequin authors who signed contracts before this nonsense began.

MWA Delists Harlequin

The Board of Mystery Writers of America voted unanimously on Wednesday to remove Harlequin and all of its imprints from our list of Approved Publishers, effective immediately. We did not take this action lightly. We did it because Harlequin remains in violation of our rules regarding the relationship between a traditional publisher and its various for-pay services.

What does this mean for current and future MWA members?

Any author who signs with Harlequin or any of its imprints from this date onward may not use their Harlequin books as the basis for active status membership nor will such books be eligible for Edgar® Award consideration. However books published by Harlequin under contracts signed before December 2, 2009 may still be the basis for Active Status membership and will still be eligible for Edgar® Award consideration.

Although Harlequin no longer offers its eHarlequin Critique Service and has changed the name of its pay-to-publish service, Harlequin still remains in violation of MWA rules regarding the relationship between a traditional publisher and its various for-pay services.

MWA does not object to Harlequin operating a pay-to-publish program or other for-pay services. The problem is HOW those pay-to-publish programs and other for-pay services are integrated into Harlequin’s traditional publishing business. MWA’s rules for publishers state:

"The publisher, within the past five years, may not have charged a fee to consider, read, submit, or comment on manuscripts; nor may the publisher, or any of the executives or editors under its employ, have offered authors self-publishing services, literary representation, paid editorial services, or paid promotional services.

If the publisher is affiliated with an entity that provides self-publishing, for-pay editorial services, or for-pay promotional services, the entities must be wholly separate and isolated from the publishing entity. They must not share employees, manuscripts, or authors or interact in any way. For example, the publishing entity must not refer authors to any of the for-pay entities nor give preferential treatment to manuscripts submitted that were edited, published, or promoted by the for-pay entity.

To avoid misleading authors, mentions and/or advertisements for the for-pay entities shall not be included with information on manuscript submission to the publishing company. Advertising by the publisher’s for-pay editorial, self-publishing or promotional services, whether affiliated with the publisher or not, must include a disclaimer that it is advertising and that use of those services offered by an affiliate of the publisher will not affect consideration of manuscripts submitted for publication."

Harlequin’s Publisher and CEO Donna Hayes responded to our November 9 letter, and a follow up that we sent on November 30. In her response, which we have posted on the MWA website, Ms. Hayes states that Harlequin intends as standard practice to steer the authors that it rejects from its traditional publishing imprints to DellArte and its other affiliated, for-pay services. In addition, Harlequin mentions on the DellArte site that editors from its traditional publishing imprints will be monitoring DellArte titles for possible acquisition. It is this sort of integration that violates MWA rules.

MWA has a long-standing regard for the Harlequin publishing house and hopes that our continuing conversations will result in a change in their policies and the reinstatement of the Harlequin imprints to our approved list of publishers.

Frankie Y. Bailey,
Executive Vice President, MWA

It's a ballsy move, taking the delisting of Harlequin from threat to reality, and I applaud MWA for it. However, it remains to be seen whether Harlequin cares as much about MWA's actions as it does about what the Romance Writers of America (RWA) will do. If RWA follows in MWA's footsteps and delists Harlequin too, that may swing a much heavier hammer.

Frankly, I'm a little surprised that Harlequin hasn't shut the whole thing down already. But then again, it's not the higher-ups, the ones who actually made this boneheaded decision, who have to field the calls and emails from angry Harlequin authors--it's the editors, the ones who had nothing to do with it. Corporate remains blissfully out of touch with the reality on the ground, while the people who don't even like this program have to take the bullets. If that doesn't end soon, corporate may have a full-fledged mutiny on its hands.

Seems my brother's all infatuated with making videos. Here's another featuring his Shalako Shala Sport Buggy:

Let me show you it.

I don't think I've ever been so excited about a show as I was about GLEE, and the pilot drove me nearly berserkoid with happy. I think I watched it a dozen times before the regular episodes started airing.

But lately? *scowl* Maybe it's just me, but NOTHING has been done with plot or character development in absolutely ages (save the intense recent revelation scene in the kitchen.) Characters have taken a turn into Stupidville. The music has been "meh" at best.

But the worst recent moments included 1) the way they presented the dancing-in-wheelchairs episode and 2) the phrase "Its like cool epilepsy" when teaching hairography.

GAWWWWD. Now, I realize teenagers say thoughtless things all the time, and that Hollywood really doesn't give a flying rat's patoot about realism when it comes to disabilities, but really? REALLY?

Shame on you, Fox, for taking a fun, fabulous premise and driving it straight into the ground. *FINGER WAG OF DOOM*

Yes, Spanky's home and wearing, as someone so pithily termed it, the Catellite Dish. He'll have to wear it for two weeks and receive medication every twelve hours, not to mention the medicating of the site itself. That should be fun.

( And here are pictures... )

Poor puss.

So much for cheery poetry:

snowflakes swirl past the
pizzeria's dark windows
for lease sign obscured