Twilight (abridged)

I read an advance reading copy of Twilight shortly after it came out, and was not impressed by the writing, Bella's self-sacrifice and submissiveness, or the thinly disguised Mormon propaganda about abstinence. So I haven't been even slightly tempted to see the movie. But I did enjoy this synopsis of the movie: "If 'Twilight' was 10 times shorter and 100 times more honest."

Art & Fear

When I need encouragement with my fiction, I turn to certain books for inspiration. One of the best is Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, by David Bayles & Ted Orland. I am now working on Into the Fire, version umpty-million, so this passage resonated with me:

William Kennedy gamely admitted that he re-wrote his own novel Legs eight times, and that "seven times it came out no good. Six times it was especially no good. The seventh time it was pretty good, though it was way too long. My son was six years old by then and so was my novel and they were both about the same height."

Obamafied!

Yes You Can Obamafy yourself with this PhotoBooth plug-in by Dubi Kaufmann. If you have a Mac running OSX 10.5 Leopard, that is. Download it here:
http://www.dubster.com/obamafy/

Local Matters WRFU Benefit

If you live in the Champaign-Urbana area, or even if you don't, I'll be at the Jane Addams bookstore as part of the Local Matters art sale in downtown Champaign from 3 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, December 6. The art sale is part of the Local Matters benefit for WRFU at the Cowboy Monkey, 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. The benefit is being held to raise funds towards a new permanent tower for WRFU (104.5 FM), a local progressive radio station collective operating out of Urbana committed to social justice, focusing on public affairs issues, and the arts.

I'll be selling signed copies of Stella Brite and the Dark Matter Mystery. There may be prizes!

For a detailed schedule of the show, go to www.myspace.com/whatmattersbenefit