…tomorrow?

[picture courtesy of NASA via Discovery Channel]

 

Interesting little sunburst yesterday means the Earth will be flooded with magnetic radiation tomorrow. Essentially, due to some smalll internal digestions problem, [summer guacamole left out too long?] the sun shot out what is known as a CME — a Coronal Mass Ejection, aimed right at us.

Not sure if all our electronics will perish in the subsequent magnetic shower tomorrow [unlikely], but apparently we’ll be able to see some pretty decent aurora action. So consider this your — literal — head’s up!

[Details, via Discovery Channel,  HERE]

 

In completely unrelated news, apparently quite a few writers feel compelled to write stories about writers and make them into movies. Huffington Post lists their favourites HERE. [pic is of Kathy Bates proving the knife is occasionally mightier than the pen in MISERY, taken from the novel of the same name by the redoubtable Stephen King.]

 

 

And, speaking of ‘redoubtable’, to finish, I’ve been following a lively discussion this morning led by @neilgaiman on twitter regarding English words that mean their own opposite. Known as auto-antonyms, or [my preference] antagonyms, these are words that self-contradict. 

DUST — can mean to remove dust from an object: “she dusted the livingroom” or to add dust: “a dusting of snow fell overnight”…

SCREEN — can mean to hide something: “screen from view” or to display something: “screen a movie”.

Can you think of any others?

If you get stuck, or want to check out a few more Wikipedia has a page HERE.

 

Happy BC Day!

 

More soon…

 

~kc

Check this out…

[via Infocult]

This is but one example of the amazing work of photo-manipulation by Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov. He blends past and present into a lovely ghostly compositions that travel effortlessly across the years. 

Wired calls this computational rephotography.

I just call it cool.

Check further examples out on Larenkov’s LJ page HERE .

More soon!

 

~kc

… to drop that steamy temperature a few degrees. [Both links courtesy of boingboing]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is The Owl from a quick little steampunk role-playing game [RPG]. You can find the link HERE, or at the boingboing site above. [Cautionary note — I haven’t played it yet, but the Owl won my heart. How can a game with a ship such as that be bad? Not quite as sweet as a Firefly, perhaps, but still very appealing…]

 

 

 

And what smuggler worth her salt would sally forth without a decent ray gun?

This sweet little number, by C.G. Conn Gideon, can be found HERE.

 

Hope these wee tastes of steampunkery add a little cool to your day!

 

 

More soon…

 

~kc

I somehow managed to crash my website two days ago and have spent the last 48 hours in despair…but the super talents of @bryanh [aka Bryan Hoff] have saved the day.

 

I have much to share, but simply cannot think of a better way to celebrate then a good Jane Austen fight…

 

[With thanks to the usually-civil Loranne Brown…] More soon!

 

 

 

…about being a writer is — hands down — the cool people I get to hang out with. I can claim among my friends some of the best, most talented, most brilliant and most exciting writers in the world. How lucky is that?

And not least among them is the amazing Kari-Lynn Winters. In the past six years, Kari has managed to get her PhD in children’s literature, become a tenured professor at Brock University AND publish 13 books for kids. [I actually think this number is dated — I’m pretty sure she’s signed contracts for at least 16 books at last count…].

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, I had a chance to watch her in action this week as she presented to a full house of excited kids in Squamish, BC. Kari’s on a bit of a tour out here this year, and we are lucky to have her, now that her home base is in Ontario.

As you can see, a presentation by Kari is pretty action-packed. Have a look at my flickr page [under Kari Takes Squamish] if you’d like to see more shots of Kari-Lynn doing her thing.

 

And in the spirit of kookiness, here’s a lovely little video I stumbled upon recently — creepy and cool and cud-chewing, all at once. Enjoy!

 

More soon…

 

~kc

A quick post-script for those who expressed concern after following my adventures yesterday on Twitter as my car got towed… Worry not! I safely got it back and had a lovely walk past a crowd of Vancouver’s finest as they headed out on bikes to police last night’s fireworks display. AND I learned never to park too close to a corner in Vancouver…

 

When the volume of work exceeds my ability to decide which is best begun first… I default to the funny.

So in that confused spirit, here is a lovely new Tim Minchin clip:

 

 

 

And in keeping with things scientific, to finish, here’s a most excellent Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense [via Crispian Jago, of the Science, Reason and Critical Thinking blog].

 

Enjoy! More soon…

 

~kc

A little late with all the travel recently [which will also be affecting my July mileage, I’m afraid]; here’s a little visual update of the walking whilst writing saga.

Walked a further 136.3 km in June, for a total of 609 km, which puts me past Revelstoke, BC on my pseudo-cross-Canada trek. My best month so far remains April, in which I logged a rousing 201.4 kms on the treadmill while reading blogs, answering email, talking on the phone and even writing a few scenes. Hoping to at least break 100 k this month, now that I’m home. 

Anyone else out there logging mileage on a treadmill desk? Feel free to share in the comments!

My cousin comes to visit from afar tomorrow, and we shall avail ourselves of other young women and hie shore-side to watch MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING with the Bard on the Beach gang. Will report in on this and other Matters Of Interest soon…

 

~kc

Apparently my legs have been getting around. Here they are in a ‘Below the Belt’ collection [mostly accompanied by men in kilts, if you like that sort of thing…] on Julie Ferguson’s flickr page. She took this shot on Bowen Island recently, when we were both appearing at Write On Bowen.

But now I am home at last from my last gig of the season. YouthWrite was a blast, of course, with the kids, creative whizzes all, and the company — great writers and friends. James and I drove home today through the mountains and spied two great Moose, [mooses? meese?] having a lovely long-legged stroll through a valley.

 

No pix of the moose, but this is a shot of an amazing sundial I stumbled upon [literally, as it turned out] at a park in Summerland one night at the YouthWrite conference.

And to finish, here [in two parts] is the radio interview I did with Lee edward Fodi, Kallie George and James McCann at Giant 107 FM in Penticton this week:

Radio Interview Part One

Radio Interview Part Two.

 

I miss my friends already, but I’m very glad to be home with my kids and dogs and cats and the usual life chaos. Seeing some decent writing and editing time in my near future, I hope.

 

Are YOU having a good summer? Tell me about it!

 

And as usual, more soon….

 

~kc

A quick how’s-yer-uncle of things here in Penticton…

The heat is pretty intense for this coastal girl — 35 today — but things are really hopping. There are around 95 kids here and they are a seething mass of creativity.

Today we began the day at Giant FM, one of the few remaining truly independent radio stations left in Canada.

[Sleepy compatriots seen at right…. photographer not fit for human consumption at that hour.]

I had a terrific time today talking publishing with the 15-20 year olds, most of them ready to leap into the writing world with both feet.

Speaking of feet — Ali and I both took on the day with very similar sartorial choices in mind. [Notice how I broke out the ‘special occasion’ boots!]

 

 

We finished the afternoon watching a Most Eclectic open mic event, in which most of the Writing Camp Crew gamely participated, and tonight we head off to a reading and signing at Hooked On Books in downtown Penticton.

 

 

 

 

And to finish? A little film, cinematography by moi, of an escrima lesson by our resident ninja and his earnest acolytes…

 

 

More soon…

 

~kc

Here in steamy Penticton, where the sun has come out at last – with a vengeance – I’m enjoying time with a group of remarkable young writers from all over the province.

Yasmin John-Thorpe, the conference organizer, has done a great job of setting up loads of publicity opportunities and we’ve been everywhere from the front page of the Penticton Herald to local radio and tv shows. [This is a shot of Yasmin with Meg Tilly ley with conference organizer Yasmin John-Thorpe after Meg’s reading at Hooked on Books last night.]

 

Authors Lee Edward Fodi, Kallie George, Lyle James McCann and I will be reading and signing there on Thursday evening after 7 pm. If you’re in the Okanagan, come on out and join us!

At the camp, my groups have been working on creating quest stories. Here’s a shot of my great Tuesday group today, going nuts for the camera.

Been tweeting the event under the hashtag #youthwrite, if you’d care to check it out.

 

 

 

This is James with the Giant Peach on the beach here in Penticton this afternoon. And I’m sitting here with Lee right now as he creates a Most Amazing video of some stills I shot yesterday afternoon. Stickfighting meets Star Wars. I’ll link to it tomorrow when he gets it up on YouTube.

 

More soon…

 

~kc