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Food Meme - the one that's going around.
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
2a) Italicize any item you'll never eat again.
2b) Asterisk any items you'd be willing to try but have not yet,
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at http://www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

( Survey says ...! )

I'm Going To Viable Paradise, And It's All Your Fault!

I'm going to repost this every week until I make my goal. Woot! Look how far along I am! Yous guys are the best!

Stay On Target...(Almost There!)

Update: Tuition is paid! I've got a roomie for a townhouse and I'm carpooling with another guy. I'm doing this!

Just like it says on the tin -- I'm soliciting funds so that I can attend Viable Paradise.

I have a fantastic, award winning editor who is interested in the novel I wrote, but he thinks that it needs a bit of a spit and polish. His words were:

I've actually read a fair chunk of it and I think it's got real promise. Applying to VP is a terrific idea, among other things because with eight instructors, you're very likely to get serious perspective on ways to make it better. I am not promising acceptance (I can't speak for the whole board), but just speaking for myself, it seems to me you would be a student at the level we always want more of, and my guess is we'd all get a lot out of having you there.

A dear friend has already donated $400 so that I might attend. Costs of the workshop include:

Workshop fee: $850
transportation: $350
food: $200
housing: $550
missed work: $600

So I need to come up with around $2600. I will be able to save about $150/mo, or $600. That leaves a $2000 hole that I'd need to fill.

epi_lj has graciously accepted the job of treasurer for this effort.

I figure that if I can get 200 folks to donate $10, I'll be there. Um, if I'm accepted. If I'm not accepted, all funds will be returned.

edit: I was accepted!

Here's the paypal ticky:

Here's a status bar!

1,860 / 2,000 (93.0%)

what was your gateway?

james_nicoll post about Harry Potter as a gateway to other fantasy made think a bit about the first books I read --

I didn't really start reading a lot until I was around 14 -- we moved from Great Lakes (the Navy base north of Chicago) to Marquette (in the U.P.) the summer after I turned 13, and I started the first Star Trek Fan Club in the U.P. It was 1975.(1) I remember reading all of those Blish books.

That year, when I was in eighth grade, and I picked up one of the Heinlein YAs. Podkayne or The Rolling Stones. Then Asimov's I, Robot, and Bradbury's 451. I remember reading several of the Best Of series that Asimov edited, which lead to his magazine. (and Ellison, Sturgeon, Turtledove...) I didn't read my first fantasy until Bruce, my boyfriend at the time, gave me The Hobbit and Watership Down for my 15th birthday (for which I will always love him.) They, of course, lead to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which lead to McCaffrey's Pern books, and from there to Cherryh's Morgaine books, (and on to the Faded Sun and Chanur books), which in turn lead to Elizabeth Moon...

I'd read my sister's copy of The Harrad Experiment when I was 13, so Stranger In A Strange Land reinforced the already growing realization that monogamy didn't make much sense to me.

My mom loved to read about the Tudors, and any other English royals. She gave me Stewart's Merlin Trilogy, which, in some way, lead to De Lint. Somewhere along the way I read John Myers Myers' Silverlock and then on to Zelazny's Amber series...

Good grief, I better just stop now. Books, books , books...

So, what were your gateway books?

1) A visual: 14 yr old LJG doing Capt. Kirk in the Graveraet Middle School library with Jeff Marlow (who is currently the Commander of the NMU chapter of Starfleet) as Spock and Cliff Neisen as Scotty or Sulu (no one ever wanted to be McCoy. I don't know why.) "Scotty! You've got to give me more power!" "We canna do it, Captain!" "Spock! What do the sensors read?"