Transition week

[alicebentley]

We are reaching the point where several of the shelving units have been mounted to the walls, and books can start coming out of boxes in serious numbers. Slowly, maddening clutter and onstructionist box-mountains are starting to dwindle. Yeay!

This Thursday was my first class in aikido, a martial art I studied in Chicago up until four years ago. Since then I've gained weight, lost muscle, and I can tell it will be another slow learning curve to get back to the point where I can put effort into something more than fighting my body. We'll see.

Friday was my first ever piano instruction. The Kid's been learning piano for about six months, and with the relocation I thought I might try it too. A-MAZE-ing how much came back from those flute lessons 35 years ago.

I'm going to hold off on starting my two major projects/hobbies - a newsletter and art - until more of the house is in order. Aikido and piano are just for fun, whatchacall "personal enrichment". The newsletter and art will be both fun and my way to be more involved in the science fiction world once again.

This user picture is really in honor of The Kid. We all enjoyed Shrek 2, but he's taken to trying to emulate the kitty when he wants something. Pretty hilareous to see.

Comments

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

Newsletter about sf world? She says in tones of interested inquiry.

MKK

My Big New Project (to be started a bit later)

[alicebentley]

I haven't said much about it in print, because it seems foolish to encourage interest in something that may not start for a while, but once I have the house in order I plan to start up a new Project.

One of the things I enjoyed about the fifteen ring circus that was the shop was collecting all the information necessary to do a reasonable job of ordering books. And one of the frustrations was that the other fourteen rings required enough effort that there wasn't time to share this information. So my Plan is to start collecting and collating that information again, mostly like a fan project, and produce a webzine and a print newsletter about upcoming releases, notable recent happenings, author bios and stuff like that. Basically all the most fun parts about what we used to discuss over the counter at the shop, but in a format conducive to sharing it with others.

While my main motivation for doing this is love of the task, I have since had a couple of major publisher sales reps express serious interest (I told them about it to try to keep my catalogs coming, even with the store gone). I figure if I can produce the sort of thing I'm thinking about for six months running, I would be willing to open it up to advertising and subscription options.

Next weekend is Foolscap, and while I haven't done anything about it (like actually asking anyone) it's occured to me that if George R. R. Martin has the time free, an interview would be a cool thing to start off with. That would, however, leave me the task of finding questions in addition to the two or three that are my personal burning curiosities.

So ... now that there's such a marvelously self-limited group of people here (those who read comments to my lj postings) ... what do you think of my crazy idea?

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

I think it's a way cool idea and I hereby volunteer to help should you need help. I used to be a librarian you know....

Also, I have all these bio notes I just collected for the N4 program book.

MKK