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Saturday, October 24th, 2009

cherylklein
 		12:42p
How Do I Love Plot Diagrams? Let Me Count the Ways.

http://chavelaque.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-i-love-plot-diagrams-let-me-count.html

Also, I worship Jennifer Crusie. Fellow plot dorks, behold this link. That is good stuff. Goodbye.

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Thursday, November 5th, 2009

news

[ theljstaff ]
 		1:15p
LiveJournal Major Notes: Spam counter-attack, RSS feeds again, CSI Deadly Intent contest


The empire strikes back

In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.

RSS feeds again

If you're addicted to [info]xkcd_rss, [info]icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.

Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!



[info]c_s_i

If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! [info]c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join [info]c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.

Enveloped in postcards

Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.



Photos of the week

If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at [info]lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
( Read more... )

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slwhitman

 		1:31p
World Fantasy recap delayed, open thread at Tu Publishing
I forgot to take many pictures at World Fantasy. (I know! Me! Calling myself a "photographer"!) Plus, my laptop's hard drive is literally so full that it won't let me upload what pictures I did take. So you won't get to see all the attending Utahns with author L.E. Modesitt and agent Joshua Bilmes (taken specifically to make Brandon Sanderson jealous, because he couldn't make it this year--blame Dan, or if you're a Writing Excuses fan, blame Jordo, who wasn't even there and it was his fault), and you won't be able to see me in my I Am Not a Serial Killer t-shirt, so you won't be able to be reassured that I'm not a serial killer until next week.

In the meantime, head on over to Tu Publishing, where today is an open thread--tell us what you'd like to see on the Tu Publishing website. What would draw you to return to a publisher's website?

Also, continued gratitude to all the people who are pledging to give Tu a kickstart! We're up past 25%! Let's keep the momentum going!

Originally published at Stacy Whitman\\\\\\\'s Grimoire.

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Sunday, November 1st, 2009

cherylklein
 		4:12p
Welcome, SLJ Readers! + Next Kidlit Drinks Night

http://chavelaque.blogspot.com/2009/10/welcome-slj-readers-next-kidlit-drinks.html


If you're coming here for the first time because of Betsy's kind article in School Library Journal, thank you for stopping by! I appreciate the time and attention. I'm a senior editor at Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic, where I edit and publish a wide range of books, and I've also been a blogger here at Brooklyn Arden since 2005 -- sometimes about personal stuff, sometimes work or kidlit or writing stuff, sometimes recipes, sometimes nonsense. I also have a website where many of my past talks for writers are archived, at www.cherylklein.com, plus I Twitter.

As you'll see from my post on October 1 below, the blog has mostly been on hiatus for the last month while I've been concentrating on work projects and some upcoming speeches I'm giving; but you might be interested in these past posts about children's literature or writing:
(A little aside to longtime blog readers: The green satin cocktail dress I cite as one of my favorite things in life? It's the one I'm wearing in the picture that accompanies the article -- very Mad Men.)

And for everyone: Our next NYC Kidlit Drink Night will be Thursday, November 12, at the Globe Bar on 23rd St., between Lexington and 3rd Ave. -- the very bar where the cover and photos for that article were shot. The festivities will start a little after six. If you'd like to get an e-mail reminder about this or be on the mailing list for future Kidlit Drink Nights, send a message to nyckidlitdrinks at gmail dot com and we'll sign you up.

Thank you again for visiting; please come back; and happy November!

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Saturday, October 31st, 2009

cherylklein
 		9:42a
In Which Two of My Favorite Things Come Together in Random Awesomeness

http://chavelaque.blogspot.com/2009/10/in-which-two-of-my-favorite-things-come.html

Namely, A Curse Dark as Gold and High School Musical. Yes, now you can see Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez stand in for Randall and Charlotte in one of the most romantic scenes from the book . . . sort of:



Thanks to Elizabeth Bunce for the link and YouTube user demilovatoandselenaz for her enthusiasm!

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Friday, October 30th, 2009

lj_maintenance

[ dwell ]
 		5:17p
Network Maintenance - Saturday, October 31, 2009 at 04:00-05:00 GMT/UTC
EDIT: If you're reading this, our maintenance is OVER! The problem was not found on our equipment, which means we'll have to work with our ISP to fix this small problem -- which also means another maintenance window in the future -- but at least we have eliminated our side.

Thank you everyone, and a special shout out to [info]rekoil for giving me a great suggestion AND also the opportunity to feel like I've just called in to a local radio station.

Have a great day, night or afternoon wherever you may be.

---

Hi everyone, sorry for the late notice but I'm going to have to do some testing on 1 of our 4 internet circuits TONIGHT; Friday night or Saturday morning depending on which time zone you're in.

Most of us shouldn't notice any impact, though there may be some slowness or lag when I switch traffic on to our other ISP circuits and then another hit when I stop the tests. If a page won't load or times out, try hitting refresh 1 or 2 times and it should load then. If it doesn't work at all... trust me, I'll be typing really really really fast to try to undo whatever I just did. Hopefully you'll have some Halloween candy (if you're in the USA and celebrate that kind of thing) nearby to take away the bitterness of a small site outage. :(

Here's the handy-dandy Website That I Always Use to get a feel for when the maintenance will start in your area. Our site traffic historically dips on Friday afternoons until Saturday morning which is why we tend to pick this time for maintenance work.

( tech details )

status.livejournal.org will, of course be updated before and after the maintenance window. Or else [info]marta will get mad at me. :D

bt

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Thursday, October 29th, 2009

news

[ theljstaff ]
 		10:53a
LiveJournal Major Notes: Search super-tweak, postcards, and amazing user content!


In response to user comments from last week, we want to let you know that we'll remain LJ cut-free for the next month in order to get more eyeballs on our evolving newsletter. As for product coverage, that continues to be our top priority. For more granular detail, however, we recommend you join [info]lj_releases.

Super-tweak for Yandex search

Some of our beta testers expressed privacy concerns using the Yandex search engine. Here's why: Last week, when you ran a search, you could see the usernames (and only the usernames) of everyone who commented on an entry, even if that entry was switched to Private or Friends Only after it was originally indexed. You could NOT see the actual comments from Friends Only or Private posts. In response to your input, we've implemented a fix to keep all user activity currently marked Friends Only or Private completely hidden. If you'd prefer your public content not to be indexed by Yandex, click here and use the settings labeled Search Inclusion (this covers your entire journal) and/or Comment Search Inclusion (which covers comments only). To test drive Yandex search now, click here.

Postcards from the edge

Several years ago, we asked LiveJournal users to send postcards to help us decorate our dull, white-washed offices. Since a good idea warrants repetition, we're at it again (same issue, new address). We hope you'll surround us with LiveJournal love by sending your postcards to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. We'll post snapshots right here. Be sure to include your username, since we'll randomly pick 10 lucky recipients to win free paid account time.

Conquer Writer's Block

Here are some excerpts from this week's most popular question of the day:

If a friend or relative makes a racist or homophobic remark, do you tend to confront them or let it slide? Are you more likely to confront them if it offends you directly or someone else who seems reluctant to speak up?
  1. I find it easier to stand up for other people, and i wouldn't let it slide if they made a rude or hurtful comment.
  2. Usually if a friend makes a racist or homophobic remark, I tend to let it slide. I think that while i would not say such things myself, I have no right to censor those around me.
  3. This happens all of the time. I confront some relatives, but I refuse to if they are drunk or watch Fox News.
  4. I'd let it slide if it was just a private remark... As much as I despise bigotry and intolerance, I know that you can't change people-they have to change themselves ...
  5. Confront! confront! confront! Politely, but without equivocation.
  6. SPEAK UP. Always, always, always speak up. Letting something slide lets ignorance win. No matter if it offends me directly, or someone else, I will confront the speaker and let them know that's not ok.
  7. I don't get offended personally. As an immigrant, woman, gay and person of color if I took every single potentially offensive remark seriously I wouldn't get anything done.
  8. I punch them in the balls. With my mind.
  9. I do speak up, but often very timidly because I feel that I'm white and therefore I don't really have any authority to lecture someone on what's racist and what isn't...
  10. Generally speaking, I do not let this shit fly, because it reduces me as a person, to this non-person and it replicates the destructive discourse that makes sure that sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, trans people and every intersection thereof into something other than human... And sometimes... I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I roll my eyes, make a sarcastic remark and hope the conversation moves on quickly.
For more daily questions and user comments, join [info]writersblock. FYI, we don't want to invade your privacy, so we haven't credited individual users for their responses. We'd appreciate your feedback on this!

Spotlight community of the week

We can't resist making one last midnight trip to the ol' pumpkin patch. If you adore crazy costumes, fiendish festivities, and bottomless candy consumption as much as we do, this community has just what it takes to light up your jack-o-lantern.


[info]halloween_fan

Photos of the week

We received so many incredible photos, we had to close our eyes and point. We uploaded a selection of awesome images at our new [info]lj_photophile community. Please join and start posting (try to keep the width at around 625 for the sake of consistency)! We'd love for you to tell us more about your photos! You can help us select spotlight photos by commenting on your favorites. Once again, we thank you for making our online world more beautiful!

[info]shutter[info]pancetta[info]ilya_gorokhov


Curtains

Thanks, again, for tuning in. We look forward to seeing you next week.

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Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

slwhitman

 		11:54a
World Fantasy this weekend
I'm heading out in the morning (at an hour I don't normally see while conscious unless I've stayed up all night) for San Jose to meet up with friends at World Fantasy this weekend. Those of you who are going as well, I look forward to seeing you there! I'll have tons of Tu Publishing bookmarks with me (about 300, I think!) so if you want one, or several to hand out to friends -- or even if you don't want one---you'll probably get one.

I'm not sure what kind of internet connection I'll have over the weekend, so I'll probably be going relatively dark on Twitter and here (not that I post overmuch here, but you get the idea). I have internet access on my phone, but I'm hoping to be busy connecting with people in person, as you can imagine! It's my first World Fantasy, and I'm looking forward to meeting new people and reconnecting with old friends.

I'm finishing up short critiques this week and next--if you don't hear from me by next Friday, please drop me an email and be sure that it wasn't overlooked. From now on, I'll be even more choosy when it comes to taking on critiques---not because I don't want to work with you guys, but because I've been so swamped for the past two months and I don't want to make anyone wait too long. Between the day job and starting a small press, that's been quite a load on my plate, and I'm grateful to all of you who have waited so patiently for me to get to your piece.

Originally published at Stacy Whitman\\\\\\\'s Grimoire.

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Monday, October 26th, 2009

slwhitman

 		3:13p
Reading beyond reality: interview with Cindy Pon at Tu Publishing
In continued celebration of the theme of Teen Read Week, even if the week itself is over, I interviewed author Cindy Pon about her new book, Silver Phoenix, and about reading beyond reality. Okay, sure, it was because our schedules didn't meet up for getting the interview up during Teen Read Week, but I think it's an important enough idea that we should continue to discuss reading beyond our reality long after the week officially celebrating it ends.

I especially like what she had to say about universal ideas in literature -- even if you're not Asian, or English, or a ballet dancer, "This is why stories are so wonderful to me. If the author did her job, you can love and relate, even to something that isnt exactly like you."

I plan to continue to interview authors, teen readers, and other bloggers over the next several months, probably one a week, so stay tuned. If you're interested in this issue and have something you'd like to submit as a guest post for Tu's blog, please also let me know at stacylwhitman AT gmail.com.

Also, if you didn't see it last week, I guest-posted over at Myth, the Universe, and Everything, talking about folklore, fantasy, and the kinds of stories I'd like to see for Tu Publishing.

Originally published at Stacy Whitman\\\\\\\'s Grimoire.

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