So as a result of the recent therapy (on the fence about whether it's helping or not), I decided that I need to do SOMETHING even if it appears to have little chance of making a living. If I just sit here, nothing's going to happen anyway. If I go on the criteria that whatever I do must result in making a full living, I'll never get anywhere because I have no viable options.

BUT if I remove that from the table, then I have more options available. I arrive at a place where I can do something that I want to do with the criteria that it could possibly EVENTUALLY make a living, but it's not mandatory. If the criteria is, "what can I do that I could spend 40 hrs a week doing and feel as if it meant something to me", then the answer was immediately clear.

So I'm resurrecting the sci-fi novella magazine project that I was going to do just before we were told the REC was closing. It's not going to be "The Terran Conspiracy", but it will be the same project under a different title. Since I actually did file LLC paperwork and had to scuttle it, I think I should change the names so as to avoid confusion. Instead, I'm planning to call it "The Sidereal Times."

This time, I'm actually going to try to do a business plan. And I've ordered new desktop publishing, website making and photo editing programs that look to be somewhat more capable than MS Publisher. I've bought a new computer.

I've been here more than a year now in Jonesboro. I'm honestly tired of not being able to plan for the future, and I just said the hell with it. I'm tired of my life being on hold, so I'm going to assume that I'm going to be here a while and get on with my life. If I'm not, if I get excessed next week or a month from now or whatever, oh well, change all the addresses and carry on. This superstitious thing that the minute I put down roots they'll be ripped out has to stop.

In light of that, I've also put in for a week off in September. I'm going to ConStellation. I'm done with fafiating. I'm going back to fandom, and I'm going to find new friends.

Mr. Bradbury, you are so right. You humble me.

Stumbling through the streets of London, laughing and crying.

Lookit. My future body!

Well, I'm in the rhubarb now.

Got the paperwork back from the Secretary of State's office four days ago, I got the EIN number and the bank account started today. Purple Ink Publishing LLC is now official. It's real now. It's going to happen.

Just because you're doing what you're meant to do doesn't mean you're not scared. It's not easy. If anything it's more difficult. But that's the whole point of the exercise. The universe may conspire to put you on the path but it doesn't just fall into your hands. Getting to the place where I can do this is one moment in time. Staying on the path, staying true to my goals and my vision for this magazine over what may be a very long time is quite another. To say nothing of the sheer mundane challenges of running a magazine, breaking even or thriving in an economy going down in flames...

So. $500 today. My income tax refund check, when it comes in. Whatever we can make on subscriptions, after we go live on January 1st. If we can just get, say, 1000 subscribers I'd consider the first year to be a resounding success. That would put us over the expenses, with some left over to pay my web editor and story editor and maybe pay to go to two or three cons. That's enough for me.

I was thinking earlier that by all conventional standards my life is essentially worthless. I have no kids, I have no husband, I live in a dump, I'm a three time college drop-out, and I work in a dead-end job that anyone could do with two weeks of training. I'm a non-entity. So it doesn't matter what I do with my life. I've chosen to devote my life to science fiction because it matters to me. It's the thing that makes my life matter to me, that maybe to this small world and culture I could contribute something of lasting value. There are people in this world who would stand up to a firing squad for Shakespeare, or Bach, or quantum physics or Picasso, because these things are simply transcendentally sublime. There is some quality in them that is beyond words or images or music or math. For me it's in science fiction, and I'm just glad I found it early enough in my life to be able to do something about it.

Been a while and might be a while more before I can get back on here, so make the most of the time.

There's been a lot going on and all the sudden I've got a lot on my plate. Actually I think the plate became a serving platter, and somebody tried to cram three whole fried chickens on it. And a Coke. (... oh come on you don't recognize that? The Blues Brothers. Sheesh.)

First off, I finished Telaon. I am now giving it some time before I start the editing, though I might fob it off on one of the folks I met at DragonCon and use it as a learning experience. But the first draft is done. Came out to about 52k words.

In related notes, I need desperately to do a podcast to assure my audience of this fact. I may do that today.

In other news, wild hair ideas can get your ass in deeper poodoo than you can possibly handle. On July 20th I posted a topic on the ISBW forum about a "wild hair idea I'd had for doing a quarterly novella magazine. Yesterday, I sent off the paperwork to start a limited liability corporation called "Purple Ink Publishing, LLC". There will be an e-text PDF format magazine going fully live on January 1st. It will be called The Terran Conspiracy. And I... am now Editor in Chief. Aside from my webmaster guy, I'm the only permanent employee at the moment. But hey, I've got, what, 2 months!

Don't go looking for the website yet, it doesn't exist yet.

Usually when I come up with crazy ideas either no one answers or they go "yeah, that's cool" and that's it. This time a couple people actually said yeah let's think seriously about it. So here I am, about to risk my savings and possibly get myself into deep financial trouble to start a magazine. I've never done editing of anybody else's stuff but my own. I've never run a business, much less a publishing business. I have a house that needs serious work and I'm about to go spend the money I was saving for it to buy ads and Google AdSense keywords. I'm going to need at least 800 or so subscribers in the year to pay all the bills. I'll probably spend every waking moment when I'm not at work working on the magazine. I probably will never be able to write my own stuff while I'm doing this, which will risk my own sanity. The podcast may have to be mothballed. But I'm still doing it.

If people aren't actively participating in a culture, it dies. "Actively participating" to me means getting new authors with good stories out into the minds of fandom. The roots of fandom and sci-fi are in words. This culture began with nothing more than words on pages sent through the mail. I aim to continue that with the new versions given to us by the computer -- electronic text and downloading rather than mimeographing and sending through the mail. Make it as painless as possible and people will be more likely to subscribe. $20/year or $6/issue, and an e-mail alert when each new issue is released for download. After a year, the magazines go into an archive and the issues are free for the download under Creative Commons. Each issue will be 10 novellas, and will end up being 2 or 3 novels worth of material. And I'm determined to make it 80 to 90% new authors.

It's a big idea. But it's worth it. Science-fiction and fandom are worth it to me.

I could use some help, though.

I might get in touch with the people who do the "Voices of Fandom" podcast. They're old-school fen and I think they'd give me moral encouragement at the least.


And of course there's work, and wondering when they're going to shut us down, and the possibility that whatever job they offer me I won't be able to take and I won't be able to find another job in this crazy economy. And Mom freaking out worrying about her retirement accounts with all the investment company failures and having to talk her down from her metaphorical cat-clinging-to-ceiling thinking she's going to spend 30 years eating dog food. I could always point out if she could afford canned dog food she could afford Campbell's soup and thus wouldn't be eating dog food in the first place, but what do I know I'm just the kid who won't have any social security at all because her generation ate it all. So you see, I have to have faith in the future or I'm going to go stark raving bonkers and start killing people with a baseball bat because I have nothing to live for. No future, no consequences, no fear.


Am I crazy for doing this thing with the magazine?

Professor Campbell always said "Follow Your Bliss".

Douglas Adams said "Don't Panic."

I'm going with that.

OpenOffice's built-in PDF maker can be set to encrypt said PDF files, unlockable with a password.

Thus, should I choose to do the quarterly novella 'zine I've been playing with as a thought experiment as an e-book PDF, I can lock the files with a password only available if one pays the subscription price. Which would be lower due to lack of printing costs, etc., of paper copies.

And PDFs can work on almost anything. That's the whole point of them. Portable Document Format.

There's now a PDF reader for the new iPhone for Zarquon's sake.

Despite having now issued a printed "official" version of Zulu-5...

I am working on it again. On an experimental basis. Because during the times lately when I have been laying awake at O-Dark-Thirty lo these many mornings with a cat kneading my head and another cat crushing me under his 19 lbs of fur and muscle, it occured to me that the whole thing with the 'borgs trapped outside didn't work.

So I changed it. On an experimental basis.

I've now got them hooking all those batteries into the power system proper. And I made Trouble a bit more angry in that exchange with Rollins. And changed the end of the scene where Rage jumps for the mail boat at the end.

I may do more editing on it. I dunno.

Can't get the characters out of my head now.

As a writer, you know you've got a good thing going if you want to know what happened after the end.

For all you Arthur C. Clarke fans like me...

Yet another crazy scheme...

Donating the last 25 Hugo Award winners to the local high schools around here. Assuming they have libraries anymore.


At an average of $10/book for paperbacks, that's $250 for a full set. Assuming that you can find some of the older ones still in print.

I'd like to do all of them but some of the first ones I know you can't find in print anymore.

Could also do the same thing with the Nebulas, the PKD, and the Tiptrees.

Hmm...