I normally don’t have a problem with creepy-crawlies. I like rats and mice, I’m fine with spiders, and I think bats are adorable. But I can’t deal with things that squish. Earthworms send me gibbering for cover, leeches petrify me, and maggots on a TV show make me blanch and the little hairs on my arms quiver. So when I realized the little smear of tan-orange on the shower door—which I initially thought was soap scum or mildew—had antennae and was oozing its merry way across the glass, I leaped, dripping wet, out of the shower and shrieked for the slumbering husband to save me.

To his credit, Matthew did indeed shamble, bleary-eyed and groggy, into the bathroom with shoe in hand. However, what really squicks me about wormy things is their squish. So I sent him away with another terrified shriek of, “Wrong! No! Not with that!”

So Matthew shuffled off with the horrifying shoe device and came back with an envelope, which he used to gently dislodged the slug and cart it outside to liberty and peace, away from the hysterical madwoman.

No longer in the proximity of the horrifying nightmare creature, I felt pretty silly. And also, in retrospect, I realized it was kinda cute—about the length of my fingertip, with little antennae nubbins and sporting a delicate pattern on its body. Made me curious what it was as well as how it had gotten into our shower.

“Must Google,” I thought.

But searching on “slug”+”Georgia” retrieves images of guns and bullets. (Erm, not touching that.) So I tried “little brown slug”+”indigenous to Georgia.”

Mistake.

I did indeed find images of little brown slugs. In Georgia. I also triggered a primal urge to stand on my desk with my skirts gathered around my knees (I’m wearing slacks, btw) and shriek.

So to cleanse my visual and emotional palette, I Googled something cute. Ergo, this baby opossum from babyanimalz.com:

Word on the street is that people think opossums are scary. I think they’re adorable. And now I want to write a story about opossums. Possibly vanquishing evil slug monsters.

Did have something of a hectic, panicky morning on Saturday, though. Lying in bed at 9:20AM, idly scrolling through the OutlantaCon schedule app on my phone, I realized I’d somehow missed being added to a panel: “Social Networking.” That day. At 10AM.

I woke Matthew with a yelp and chaotic scrambling ensued. I did make it to my panel on time—with five minutes to spare, even—but, of course, had absolutely nothing prepared.

Then again, I actually did some prep for my “Job By Day, Writer By Night” panel on Sunday but promptly forgot to bring up one of my talking points, which is ironic as it was on the importance of making time to do the little things like eat and sleep and exercise while juggling the myriad hamsters of writing and the day job so as to be able to maintain focus and productivity. So, yeah, unfocused. But my fellow panelists, Shae and Dennis, had it covered.

Sorta been feeling blah for weeks now. All year, really. Between having the worst lupus flare-up I’ve had in ten years and the rigors of the legislative session, I’ve been utterly wiped, which has not done great things for my emotional equilibrium. But the session is well over, I started doing yoga again, and have a search party out hunting for my absconded motivation. Here’s hoping the rest of 2012 is better than its beginning.

I’m slated to be on these panels:

• “Teen Fiction” – A discussion about the major players in the field; attendees are encouraged to bring up their favorite teen series as well. With Kiernan Kelly and Dennis Upkins. Sat. (5/5) 6PM, Board Room.
• “Job By Day, Writer By Night” – How do our author and filmmaker guests juggle creating fantasy worlds and gay romances at night with computer support, database design, and other mundane careers during the day? There’s got to be some funny stories there. With Shae Connor, Paul Bright, and Dennis Upkins. Sun. (5/6) Noon, Board Room.

But as souped up and modded as it was, my poor old Droid suffered from something I couldn’t fix: a shortage of RAM. At only 256 MB, even running a streamlined Gingerbread ROM to maximize memory and CPU balancing, I was having to strip off apps to conserve space and was still seeing an inevitable slowdown—despite overclocking the processor to 1 GHz. Every time one of my apps got an update, I had to weigh the increased size of it (upgrades to apps inevitably include size creep) and potential increase in CPU demands against the amount of internal storage/RAM I had, which usually meant I didn’t install the update. But even with painstaking space hoarding, websites were taking forever to load, apps likewise took forever to launch and frequently force closed or froze after they did finally open, and it often took half my train commute simply waiting for a status update to update already.

The thing is, I’m impatient. I just plain hate waiting for anything (not an advantageous personality trait for a writer to have, btw). And I’m also usually crunched for time, which exacerbates my normal hurry-up-already mindset to a perpetual state of “Rrarghh!” *gnash teeth, foam at mouth*. Of all the bells and whistles I enjoy ringing and tooting on my tech, what I really want is speed. I crave blazing fast, snappy responsiveness, lickety-split data downloads, and instantaneous content.

So when the Droid 4 came out touting 4G, a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor, and 1 GB of RAM, I had lust.

We did do some shopping. I’d already heard that 4G drains battery life something fierce, and in Motorola’s infinite wisdom [/sarcasm], the Droid 4 was designed without a removable battery. I was also tempted by the Droid Razr Maxx with its heftier battery and the Galaxy Nexus, vanilla Android and all but made to be rooted. However, I was loathe to give up my hardware keyboard since I write on my phone, although so long as I had a Swype keyboard, I could conceivably do without one. But I wanted to hold and play with them all so I could get a feel for each before making a decision. And I’m glad I did.

Did you know the Razr Maxx has a 4.3″ screen and the Galaxy Nexus has a 4.65″ screen? I do. And I also know that 4.3″ is too frigging big for my hands, and 4.65″ is way-the-stupid too big. I have small hands with slender fingers, “ideal for typing on little keys and navigating little screens,” I thought. But I simply can’t reach across the damn screen on those monster devices without accidentally hitting one of the navigation soft keys. And while I frequently use both hands when fiddling with my phone, I often need to be able to anchor myself on a moving MARTA train with one hand, leaving only one free to check email or pen that vital sentence before it evaporates at the next stop.

The Droid 4, with its 4″ screen, is still a bit large for me—my OG Droid’s screen is 3.7″, just about perfect for my hands—but it’s a larger I can adapt to. At least my thumb can reach higher than halfway up the screen. And aside from my whiny, “Why’s everything have to be so damn big?” complaint, I LOVE my Droid 4.

The Droid 4 is fast, as in, oh-my-god-it’s-faster-than-I-am fast. When I first got it, I found myself hitting random icons and menu buttons because I felt inadequately slow, like I ought to be trying harder to keep up with it. And the 4G is downright swoon-worthy. It’s actually speedier than both my home and work wifi networks. I downloaded three 60+ MB files on my Droid 4 in the time it took for my morning train to depart the station. I would’ve been lucky to get one of those files before hitting the no signal dead zone six stops (about 25 minutes!) down. The native camera, always the most sluggish feature on my OG Droid, loads way faster than my old Nikon digital camera took to turn on and snaps pictures with barely any delay between shots. I even uninstalled Camera ZOOM FX, an app I paid for because it made taking photos so much faster on my OG Droid, after I discovered it was slower than the native camera.

And the keyboard is just plain sexy.

In addition to having a fifth row, the tactile experience is so much more viscerally enjoyable than that of my OG Droid’s. It’s quick and agile, a pleasure to use.

Also, the amount of RAM and internal memory is downright decadent. I installed apps on my Droid 4 in a state of giddy glee, restoring and rediscovering apps I’d had to sacrifice on my OG Droid due to space and RAM constraints. And I’ve been trying out some new ones I’d heard about but been unable to run, like Assistant (a virtual companion/assistant a la Siri for Android), WDlxTV MediaPlayers Remote (a remote control emulator for our home media server), and Splashtop Remote Desktop (allows you to access everything on your computer via your phone).

As far as the battery goes, it’s been surprisingly decent. As expected, battery life takes a pretty noticeable hit with prolonged 4G use, but in terms of average daily use, a full charge on my Droid 4 seems to be comparable to or better than what I was getting on my OG Droid (overclocking also = big battery drain).*

Yep, loves my new Droid 4, I do. And I’m not missing the root access like I thought I would. A big reason for rooting my OG Droid was so I could maximize its processing power and speed as it began to suffer slowdowns and instability due to its limited RAM and underclocked processor. I don’t really foresee that being an issue anytime soon with my Droid 4.

 

Got to meet Emilie P. Bush, the author of Her Majesty’s Explorer: a Steampunk bedtime story (which is indeed a children’s steampunk tale; how cool is that?) and Paul Stevens, an editor for Tor, both of whom are awesome. Also got to catch up with Mary Robinette Kowal and Michael Livingston.

I met Mike at the first Launch Pad workshop in Laramie, WY, in 2007. Can’t believe it’s been so long since we last gabbed. I’m so pleased JordanCon had him as a guest this year, and I greatly enjoyed doing panels with him.

Mary was the guest of honor so was, unsurprisingly, booked up pretty solid. She also had a story deadline this weekend—which she made—and is getting ready to move to Chicago. Yet she still managed to find time to chat and party and conduct informative and entertaining panels. I am slack-jawed with awe and admiration. I particularly enjoyed her “Schmoozing 101″ and “At The Intersection of Puppetry and Science Fiction” panels where she shared some fascinating tidbits of her writing process with puppets as both correlate and metaphor. She also regaled us with a tale of a Puppet Show Gone Terribly Wrong, which had the audience howling. I laughed so hard I had to wipe away tears, and I will never think of the Sleeping Beauty fairytale in quite the same way ever again.

Here’s what I’m scheduled for:

• Book signing (with Emilie P. Bush). Fri 2:30-3:30PM, Barrington.
• “Young Adult Literature” Harry Potter, Alcatraz, The Hunger Games, Twilight… why are full-grown adults reading this stuff? With Tiffany Franklin and Rachel Little. Fri 5:30-6:30PM, Goulding C.
• “Keeping it Short” A discussion on the differences in writing short fiction and novels. With Michael Livingston. Sat 1-2PM, Goulding A.
• “The Business” Our industry professionals talk about what goes on in the publishing world. With Emilie P. Bush, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Paul Stevens. Sun 10-11AM, Goulding A.
• “Folklore and Fairytales” Incorporating myth and tradition into fiction. With Michael Livingston. Sun 1-2PM, Goulding A.

Hope to see folks there!

I’m stoked to be in such excellent company. Check out the awesome lineup:

• Camille Alexa – Pinktastic and the End of the World
• Erik Scott de Bie – Hunger of the Blood Reaver
• Chaz Brenchley – Villainelle
• Eugie Foster – Oranges, Lemons, and Thou Beside Me
• David Sakmyster – Prometheus Found
• Marie Bilodeau – Happily Ever After
• Richard Lee Byers – Little Things
• K.D. McEntire – Heels
• Peadar Ó Guilín – The Sunshine Baron
• Jim C. Hines – Daddy’s Little Girl
• Ari Marmell – Than to Serve in Heaven
• Karin Lowachee – The Bleach
• Jay Lake – The Woman Who Shattered the Moon
• Julie Czerneda – Charity
• J.M. Frey – Maddening Science
• Clint Talbert – Birthright
• Rachel Swirsky – Broken Clouds
• Tony Pi – The Miscible Imp
• Leah Petersen – Manmade
• J.P. Moore – Lord of the Southern Sky
• Ryan McFadden – Back in the Day
• Todd McCaffrey – Robin Redbreast
• Erik Buchanan – Cycle of Revenge
• Gregory A. Wilson – The Presuil’s Call
• Rosemary Jones – The Man With Looking-Glass Eyes
• Gabrielle Harbowy – Starkeep
• Ed Greenwood – A Lot of Sly Work Ahead
• Mercedes Lackey / Larry Dixon – Heir Apparent
• Chris A. Jackson – Home Again, Home Again
• Steve Bornstein – The Best Laid Plans

They will each receive a signed copy of Returning My Sister’s Face.

Thanks to everyone who entered! I read every entry, and y’all sent me some truly fabulous and interesting answers. I hope this contest helped folks discover some great new authors to read.

At Shared Worlds, students form teams in classrooms to build entire fantasy or science fictional worlds in the first week and then write stories in those worlds the second week. They also get to attend author readings, take field-trips to bookstores, and create videos about their imaginary worlds.

The camp is supported by Amazon.com but is funded in large part by donations which help to ensure that attending the Shared Worlds Teen Writing Camp can be a possibility for all registered students, no matter what their financial need—which brings us to the “Critter Map.”

With website created by filmmaker and writer Gregory Norman Bossert, artwork by Jeremy Zerfoss, and compiled and edited by Therese Goulding, it includes story contributions from writers including Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, Scott Westerfeld, Gene Wolfe, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and even yours truly. So head on over to check out the Critter Map. Click on a critter and read its story. And please donate what you can to this great cause!