My Shangri-La beneath the summer moon

If you don't normally listen to the music I pick for you, you might want to give this one a whirl. I was looking for a specific cover version of Led Zeppelin's Kashmir.  I didn't find the one I sought, but happened upon this bluegrass version from the Pickin' On series that I really liked.  I hope you do too.

*puts on my best Saturday Night Live host voice*

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, Allison Dickson!

Due to excessive spam comments, I've been forced to limit commenting to registered users only. If you're not registered, I encourage you to do so. It only takes a minute and it's free and the benefits are, well, pretty darn astounding. On the other hand, according to the site traffic, I'm not exactly burning up the bandwidth with people anxious to comment, and I realize most times I'm preaching to a (mostly) empty congregation.

Jay Lake had a brilliant post about what happens after you turn a manuscript in to a publisher. Click through and read it. Totally worth it.

Gonna love you baby, here I come again

Do you see the new badge in the upper left hand corner for the 2010 Pikes Peak Writers Conference?  Do me a huge favor and click through (you only have to do it once).  The PPW is counting unique IPs and will list the top referring websites on their own site as well as at the Conference itself.  Heck, if you really love me, you could click through from multiple computers!  Either way, it's one click that opens a new tab, and it helps me out, so thanks in advance!

Maps and Other Nonsense

This week's Super Guest Star is freelance writer and Twitterer Extraordinaire Rebecca Blain.  I first encountered her, unsurprisingly, when she retweeted one of my writing-related tweets.  I'm in the habit of following those who retweet me to see what kind of interesting things they have to say.  since then, I've had some enjoyable lengthy conversations about writing, agents, and publishing with her, and I asked her if she would write a piece for me.  This is what she sent.  I hope you enjoy it!

Things have changed

It's been a pretty busy week between getting squared away with my new agent and starting a new book.  I've been working on editing a friend's short story and watching other friends enter their stuff into ABNA '10.  Best of luck to all of you who chose that route; I hope you get screwed over neither by Amazon nor by the popularity contest.
Finally, spare a few good thoughts for a friend of mine who's having a lengthy, complicated surgical procedure today.