Steamed Baristas Shut Down Fort Worth Starbucks Drive-Thru, Demand Affordable Healthcare and Paid Sick Days for those with H1N1

Fort Worth, TX- Baristas and community supporters at the 8th and Rosedale Starbucks shut down the store’s drive-thru this morning and delivered a list of demands including affordable health care options and sick days for those displaying H1N1 or other cold and flu symptoms. Starbucks doubled the cost of the company health insurance plan in September, leaving many workers unable to afford treatment because of sky-high deductibles and premiums.

“We’ve had enough. Baristas should not be forced to expose customers to H1N1 or other contagions and stay sick longer, just in order to be able to make the money they need to support their families and pay astronomical health care costs. We’re making $7.30/hr., that’s a nickel above minimum wage,” said IWW Barista Michelle Cahill.

more at http://www.starbucksunion.org/node/2205 

Today I'd like to introduce you to scientist and children's author Loree Griffin Burns.

She's managed to combine two of my most favorite things, nature and writing, into wonderful books for children.

Trips to her blog are like little nature field trips. A couple of my favorites posts are Monarchs in Space and Seeing the Chrysalis, Finding the Spine.

Enjoy!

Saw in year's long night by roasting marshmallows in the backyard firepit of a friend's new house. The air here is chill, but not cold, no sign of that just-might-freeze edge it sometimes takes on this time of year. Haze dimmed the moon, gentled its edges, made the night a little darker than it might otherwise be.

The smell of woodsmoke still lingers on my clothes. Tomorrow, the days will start getting longer again. We have mixed feelings about that around here, but in this season of cool nights and warm days, it's hard to truly believe in 110 degree summers anyway--and the extra light will be welcome, even if the cold is not something we seek to escape.

And so the year continues turning round. A good and joyous solstice to all.

Meant to post this earlier today but I got busy doing other things. Some of you will have seen this, since I re-Tweeted my publisher's post on it Friday night, but for those of you who haven't, here is the trailer for FIRST DROP OF CRIMSON. Hope you enjoy it! I also received an early Christmas present from Romantic Times when reviewer Jill Smith had this to say about FIRST DROP OF CRIMSON: "Book by book, Frost builds her reputation as an author who delivers only the best." RT gave FDOC a Top Pick rating, too. Needless to say, I am extremely flattered by both the comment and the rating :).


(Note: the trailer has sound, so if you're browsing at work and don't want to get caught, turn your volume down ;-).





If for some reason the embed code is acting up, here's a link to the trailer here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/JeanieneFrost#p/a/u/0/k1zhJysS3mQ

Also, I uploaded a few cool fan-made trailers up on my Favorites page on YouTube, which you can check out here. Aren't they neat?:

http://www.youtube.com/user/JeanieneFrost#p/f

And in more Christmas-came-early news, I just found out that Germany bought translation rights for FIRST DROP OF CRIMSON, ETERNAL KISS OF DARKNESS, and Cat & Bones # 5. A lot of good things happened in 2009, but there were some tough knocks, too - though I usually don't blog about those. Everyone has enough of their own stresses without me piling on mine :) So this was a very nice way to close out the year, and of course, it wouldn't have happened without reader support. Once again, thanks so much!

• 15:45 I can totally wrap up this entire story and all its elements and emotions in the 15K I have left. No problem! ....sob... #

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BEAUTIFUL CREATURES by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Ethan can't wait to get out of his small southern town until Lena moves into her recluse uncle's mansion and attends Ethan's school, even when strange things happen and the pair develops a connection to each other and their ancestors that Ethan never saw coming. I like that this paranormal romance is told from the "normal" boy's pov, and the southern setting is strong. There were a lot of fantastical elements to follow, and the ending wasn't what I expected, but overall I enjoyed this story.

I’ve finished Zombie Raccoons and Killer Bunnies, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Kerrie Hughes and overall it was an OK anthology. A few stories stood out, and those I’ve denoted with bold titles. A few of the stories were disappointing, either with an ending that wasn’t as satisfactory as I would have liked, or with an ending that just didn’t make sense to me at all. There were some good chilling stories in here, along with some fun humorous takes on the theme, so a wide variety overall. If you like “creature of the night” stories, then you’ll find a couple of good reads in here, but in the end I was a little disappointed overall.





Table of Contents:

Death Mask by Jody Lynn Nye: This was a zombie raccoon story, where the raccoons come up against a farmer who doesn’t agree with the idea that you need to commune with nature. It was an OK story, but I had a hard time getting used to the voice of the farmer character, which threw me off.

BunRabs by Donald J. Bingle: And this was a killer bunny story . . . told from the POV of a chicken. *grin* The chicken’s POV of the world in general is hilarious, especially their take on modern day conveniences (and how they use them) and the mythology they’ve developed about rabbits and how they incorporate some of our own traditions into their worldview. A fun story.

for lizzie by Anton Strout: A cute little story set in Anton’s “Simon Canderous” universe, although it doesn’t feature Simon as a character. The main character is an archivist, dealing with a certain lack of social skills when dealing with the opposite sex . . . along with a rather ferocious little book wyrm.

Faith in Our Fathers by Alexander B. Potters: The idea here is that young child who can heal with his hands in upset because his pet cats keep disappearing. His father tells him it’s the fisher cats (who aren’t fishers or cats) that keep taking them, so the boy decides he wants to find these fisher cats and goes in search of them. He finds something more instead. It was an interesting story, written well, but at the end I wanted more. I wanted the story to do more, especially since there was so much potential for more in what was presented in the story. With that said, though, this is the best story in the anthology so far.

Bone Whispers by Tim Waggoner: The creature in this story is a rather large and supernatural groundhog, haunting a cemetery. The story revolves around a man returning to the cemetery to confront the groundhog, who had a run-in with when he was twelve years old. I felt like this story needed a little more development, with the connection between the groundhog, the man, the boy, and the groundhog’s hole (and the cemetery) fleshed out more. It had a creepy ending though.

Watching by Carrie Vaughn: And here we deal with pigeons. A man proposes to his girlfriend after taking her to Venice . . . only to have her say no. This sets the man’s life onto a whole new track as he sets out to backpack across Europe, discovering pigeons the entire step of the way. Only the pigeons aren’t exactly what they seem. The first half of the story was interesting, and the character drew me in, but then the story takes a hard sharp turn (perhaps even a hair-pin turn) in the middle and becomes a completely different kind of story altogether. This wasn’t a bad thing and the ending itself makes you smile, in a sort of funny/gruesome kind of way.

The Things That Crawl by Richard Lee Byers: This story doesn’t single out one particular type of creature, it sort of deals with snakes, lizards, alligators, etc, in general. And this is the most well developed story in the anthology. I connected to the main character, a detective who has an alcohol problem, so has been demoted and has relocated to the coast of Florida where, after a hurricane passes through, discovers that the local wildlife isn’t behaving as usual. He picks up on this and puts the pieces together (he is a detective after all), but the conclusion is, of course, too supernatural for the average person to believe. He ends up being forced to deal with the situation himself. Again, a very well-written, cohesive story with a rounded plot, rounded character arc, and a beginning, middle, and end.

The White Bull of Tara by Fiona Patton: This is a story centered around the White Bull of Tara. It begins interestingly enough—fairy cows are breaking through from the fairy realm to munch on the Druids’ garden and a pack of siblings/guards are tasked to stop the incursion. They figure out who’s causing the problem, and why . . . and then the story just kind of dies. They don’t really do much to stop the incursion from the fairy side, but the cows stop coming. Instead, the White Bull’s rival comes through and has his way with the local herd. It just felt like the story fell apart to me, or skewed off in a different direction from the first two-thirds of the story, and so the ending didn’t feel right.

Dead Poets by John A. Pitts: I don’t think I understand this story at all. I REALLY, REALLY liked the idea introduced at the beginning: the main animal here is the shrike, a bird, which (I didn’t know this before reading the story) apparently captures its prey and impales it on thorns on hedges and such around its nest. A cool factoid in and of itself. When, in the course of the story, the main characters finds that the shrike pestering her garden has started impaling pixies as well as rodents and such, the story jumped into a whole new level of interest for me. I seriously thought this would be the coolest story in the anthology . . . but then it completely fell apart near the end. Great setup, great idea, great animal . . . but nothing is done with it in my opinion. It kind of just trails off.

Super Squirrel to the Rescue by P.R. Frost: This story was cute, as the title suggests, with only a little touch of “evil creature from the night” to it. In this case, the evil creatures were crows, a whole murder of them, tormenting a neighborhood. Every attempt by the people to eliminate them was ignored and ridiculed with cawing. It required a rather supernatural squirrel to come to the rescue!

Her Black Mood by Brenda Cooper: This time, the creature of the night was much darker, a black toad created by the main character who can paint wooden carved creatures to life. However, she’s in such a black mood due to her life that this toad, when she paints it alive, comes out rather evil, with teeth and a lust for blood. Brenda Cooper captures the black mood of the character perfectly (we’ve all felt like this at some point, I’m sure) and the toad comes across as evil indeed, but I felt the resolution of the story could have used a little more umph. It made sense (unlike some of the other stories in this anthology), but I felt that so much time was spent on creating the situation and background that there should have been a little more time spent on resolving it all. It took 10 pages for the setup and making the toad as evil as possible, but only 2 pages to resolve the entire situation. A little unbalanced, but definitely a good read.

Ninja Rats on Harleys by Elizabeth A. Vaughan: The title pretty much says it all. *grin* A fun little story with evil rats and possums, a heroic mouse, and two flatulent dogs. Oh, plus a few humans. An interesting and enjoyable read, with just the right amount of humor thrown into the danger. But again this story felt unfinished. Unlike some previous stories in the anthology though, this one felt complete in and of itself, but also felt like the start of something much bigger. At least, I felt like I could have flipped the page and started another chapter when I reached the end. A good story overall though. Definitely entertaining.

Bats in Thebayou by Steven H Silver: Alien bats, anyone? That’s the main creature in this story (plus mosquitoes). Earth has been invaded by alien bats . . . we just don’t know it yet. The story flips back and forth between an alien bat perspective and the human perspective of two campers in Thebayou. I’m not sure this was effective overall, since I was much more interested in the alien bat perspective and not interested at all in the human perspective. But again, the ending was unsatisfactory to me. And aside from the main creature being a bat, there wasn’t much in the way of “creature of the night” feeling to this story.

Twilight Animals by Nina Kiriki Hoffman: This story was well-written, with a main character who could at this point in his life be labeled a “loser.” He’s hired to watch over his brother’s house while his brother and family tour Europe for a month. Since this guy’s in college, he decides to do some research on the neighborhood, ostensibly for a paper for school. Of course, he begins seeing things during his studies that just aren’t natural, in this case, a peculiarly large possum population. The ending is also peculiarly reminiscent of another story in this anthology, which is kind of bizarre. But overall a good story.

The Ridges by Larry D. Sweazy: The last story is about foxes . . . sort of. I can’t say much about the storyline without ruining it, so I’ll just say that the storyline here was good and it didn’t end the way I thought it would as I read it. I had the right idea, in general, but the author twisted it around into something different than what I’d expected by the end. Not really a “creature of the night” story in true form, although it certainly fit the theme of the anthology

So I stepped away from blogging for a day or so, and returned to find that the unofficial editor appreciation day has come and gone. I don't want to miss this one, though, so I'm joining the party late.

My editor is Erica Sussman at Harper Collins, and she is wonderful!!

Erica sort of adopted RIVAL and helped me shape it into something that her colleagues at Harper would want to buy. She saw something in the story and believed in me enough to provide in-depth feedback. Her comments were so right-on that I don't think I could have helped coming out on the other side with an excellent book. She shepherded RIVAL through the acquisitions process and is now shepherding it toward publication. Every time I see her name in my email in-box I feel fortunate to work with someone who *gets* my book and, I believe, gets me as an author.

So hey, Erica, thanks! Here's a little bit of editor-appreciation-day love coming your way. And if you want to see what other authors have said about their editors, go here. (I saw at least one other person raving about Erica as well...)

I finally ate the cookie of me made by my friend H—. My sister was kind enough to record the historic event via photographic evidence.

















As usual, more at the Flickr set.

The sky is overcast and gray, with perfect soft light. There's a Jazz Christmas channel on itunes radio, and I'm going to be Christmas-card-making with the kids, then drawing at the Studio all night. All calming; centering; necessary.

 

http://amjenkinsbooks.blogspot.com/2009/12/note-to-self-questions-to-remember.html

What is the MC able to do by the end of the book that s/he wasn't able to do in the beginning?

Why is s/he able to do it?

What has s/he realized?

So I spent ANOTHER few hours today transcribing the student evaluations for my second semester at Oneonta. There were more evals this time, probably because it was the first time I'd taught a couple of the courses and I admit that my perception of what the students would be able to handle was skewed at the beginning. I adjusted as the semester went along, and most of the students complained about what I'd expected at the beginning, but also noted that things changed as the semester went along. So I think, overall, the evals were good ones. I've got two more semesters of evals to transcribe now, and when I return to classes in January, the Fall 2009 evals should be waiting for me to transcribe.

But I say again, GAH, and ask, "What's the point?" I mean, I could copy the evals and put them if the administrators really do want to see them all, but I don't honestly think that they really do look at these things when they get together to discuss the portfolios. Sure, they may look at a few of them, but am I seriously expected to believe that they're going to look at the hundreds of evals I've gotten, when they probably have 50 other portfolios to look at after mine?

In any case, here are some of the typos I found during this batch. And these are just errors in spelling. I'm not even attempting to take note of the grammar errors involved.

The winner by far in the spelling wars was "quizes." I probably saw it spelled that way over 50 times. People just don't believe in z's anymore, apparently. The others, in no particular order:

"reconize"
"calculatos"
"assesments"
"metrial"
"calculters"
"calcalters" (This was on the same one as the previous word, so the student was trying to figure out how to spell it correctly.)
"explination"
"proffesor"
"resonable"
"suprises"
"ridculously"
"theroms"

And may I add that, as a writer, it is EXTREMELY difficult to type those words spelled incorrectly into the computer? Both here and when I was typing up the evals. But I push onwards. Probably not until after the trip home for the holidays though. Tomorrow I'm hoping to write some on my own stuff.

http://amjenkinsbooks.blogspot.com/2009/12/cant-get-any-traction-in-my-writing.html

Can't get any traction in my writing. I've been working on the former GN, but it's like I'm turning a gear where the cogs are worn or broken and won't quite slip into place and make the thing move properly. I've got the middle set up more than I ever have before, but it's apparently not ready to click yet as far as creating its own momentum. Dammit.

What is the thing that's preventing it from slipping into place? Something's in the way, here. I need to try to figure out what it is.

Via lucy_anne, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Daleks.

I told people I'd take more snow pictures when the sun was out. Well, the sun is out! The snow's already begun settling. It crunches when I walk on it. (Again in Jeff's shoes. He asked why his feet were wet when he put his shoes on. I dunno!)



I have a Flickr set for the Snowpocalypse here.

--

Last night in chat, I declared that my desk was full of yarn. cristalia demanded a photo.



Okay, it's pretty close, anyway.

--

This afternoon, I wanted to finish plying some yarn on Bob.

Well, to get this, you need to know how the flyer system works. The metal thing in the back (whorls) turns a spindle, which the bobbin slides onto. (The bobbin is the thing with yarn on it.) The flyer is the wood thing with arms coming off it, like a horseshoe. The flyer is also on the spindle that's connected to the whorls.



The flyer turns. Fast. It's what gives the yarn twist. Then it drags the yarn through the hook and guide, and wraps it around the bobbin. It can do that even though the bobbin is spinning, because see that white string wrapped around the back of the bobbin? That is the brake band. It keeps the bobbin spinning slower than the flyer.

Okay. Get it?

Well, today I was plying, and the bobbin was getting full...



What happens here is the bobbin was so full that the yarn was pressed against the flyer arms. No amount of tension on the break band would keep the bobbin going slower, so it wouldn't draw the yarn onto the bobbin. So every time I had to wind on, I stopped the wheel, pushed the bobbin around with my fingers, and repeated.

That is really fluffy yarn. It's a 4oz bobbin. That's 4oz of yarn. It all fit on the bobbin as singles, but the fluffiness from plying makes it take more room.

This weekend, I’ve been mourning the sudden death of a good friend. I’ve been debating whether to blog about this, since this blog is largely about writing and I tend not to say much about my personal life. Also, I have found the greatest consolation in talking about this with the people who also knew my friend.

But writing is inextricably bound with the emotions that make us human. I have been finding solace in my writing—in what I have already written and what I am writing now. I’ve even found myself turning to the pages of my own book, which is in part about grief and loss—the loss of a different kind of relationship, to be sure, but still loss. I remember that one of my early critiquers questioned this passage:

“I knew then. But some part of me didn’t believe it, and in the days after that I kept waiting for more information, waiting for the story to change. Even when everybody knew she was dead, when the obituary came out and the funeral was scheduled, I kept expecting to see her ...”

Would the character, asked my critiquer, really be in such denial? I didn’t hesitate to say yes, having experienced it with other losses, and I’ve been living the truth of it all over again. I have been going in and out of that same denial all weekend.

This is one reason I read, and one reason I write: to share the emotions and experiences common to all of us.

My friend was one of those people who brought joy to everyone who knew her, the kind of person who’s always giving, and doing for others, and thinking of others. She was at my wedding, and we shared walks and birthday celebrations and countless other occasions. She cheered on my writing career; she took care of my cat when I was away. That joy is my other consolation: having given so much of it to all of us, she would not want us to throw it away. So I feel cheated to have lost her and lucky to have known her, both at the same time.

I'm the guest blogger over at Reading is Bliss and am giving away copies of The Comeback and Unexpected Development (US & Canada) so please stop by.

http://readingisbliss.blogspot.com/2009/12/25goc-marlene-perez-super-generous.html

There are some things too great for one's heart to bear, and mine cannot even fathom the pain my friend Cesar is going through. He is a fine artist, a fine man, and his daughter Alana, not yet three, has been critically ill all year. Multiple surgeries, and infections, and several occurrences of septic danger caused by whatever went wrong that day. In November, she didn't even have enough abdominal skin left to cover the wounds from surgery. She has been so sick, and so sweet and brave, and it got worse a few days ago, requiring full time dialysis just to keep her functional, and Cesar and his wife have decided to let her go, so that she won't continue to suffer from all the ailments and treatments she just isn't strong enough to bear. And this isn't my pain, but it's my friend's pain, and I am shattered today. Shattered. Tell them you love them. Don't wait. Don't push back the days, or the hours, or the minutes. Don't waste time on anything less important - and everything - everything - is less important. God be with you and your family and little Alana, Cesar. http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=300699