MuseBlog

Let us know when your issue arrives. NO SPOILERS, please. There’s another thread for discussing the issue.

We didn’t know there was an Italian edition. That certainly doesn’t look like Urania on the cover.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330199669000

She explains, “I was decorating my Christmas tree a few days ago… And I opened a box and out sprang an hpb. It made off with an ornament and unplugged the tree.” And adds: “The bunnies took me by suprise, hence the bad focus and weird angles.”

(Photos are below the fold.)

Users’ Manual: Obey The Rules. Consult The Guide. Have fun!

More questions. Occasional answers. Continued from No. 4.

In which we bid Captain Canix a dull uneventful rewarding and pastry-laden retirement as his crew scrambles to adjust ranks and ready themselves in time for the next voyage. In other developments, the former coxswain of the Black-Footed Ferret now captains her own ship, the Amphitrite.

For further information, you’re on your own, or read Ships’ Logs: Beyond Museica, Part 9, for all the good it will do you.

Reliable sources inform us that the Muses will visit the blog this evening (Tuesday, December 1918) at some time between 6 and 7 p.m., blog time. Watch for ’em on this thread!

Some of you have noted that non-Musers don’t seem to grasp the true menace of hot-pink-bunny garments and actually think they’re “sweet” and “cute.” Our new designs on Musery Loves Company should leave no doubt. Check ’em out. More soon!

Ludwig B. and Jane A. are, of course, immortal, but they would be (respectively) 237 and 232 years old on Sunday, December 16. They are jolly good fellows, which nobody can deny.

For those who think peace is boring. Do what you must.

Continued from Part 3.

Continued (of course) from TERRA Formed, Part 1: The Edit.

You heard it here first: Starting in the January 2008 issue, Muse‘s Q&A page will have two new question-answerers slaving away to requite your curiosity.

The new columnists are Ruth Flanagan and Andy Soth. Ruth is a science writer turned middle-school teacher. Andy is a TV producer, all-round jolly good fellow, and, not coincidentally, Ruth’s husband. They’re old buddies of Robert’s, and — well, we’d better get them on the blog to let them tell you for themselves.

Q. Why the change?

A. In a word, time. In three words, too little time. Rosanne’s day job and other activities were getting so demanding that she was having trouble keeping up with the column, as much as she enjoyed it. Pondering what to do next, Robert immediately thought of Ruth. He’d been a fan of articles she had written for magazines like Discover and New Scientist back in the Pleistocene Epoch and later had great fun working as her editor at Earth. Robert called and asked if she’d like to join the Great Muse Adventure. “Sure!” she said. “Can Andy help, too?” “Tell you what,” Robert said: “You two write the column together for a year, while I take a vacation.” And so far, everybody is living happily ever after. (Of course, technically the year hasn’t started yet, but never mind.)

We’ll haul Ruth and Andy over to MuseBlog soon to say hi and generally get an idea of what they’re in for. Meanwhile, if there are any questions… Yes? You, in the back?

del•i•quesce: 1. to melt away; esp., to dissolve gradually and become liquid by attracting and absorbing moisture from the air. 2. Bot. To ramify into fine divisons, as the veins of a leaf.

In Part Two of this month’s random thread, all Musers are expected to ramify into the finest divisions possible.

Users’ Manual: Obey The Rules. Consult The Guide. Have fun!

Dear Miss Dickinson,

Our felicitations to you on the 177th anniversary of your birth (December 10, 1830).

Robert feels compelled to confess something: You know that poem you wrote, the one that starts “I’m nobody! Who are you? / Are you nobody, too?” Robert can’t abide it. Never could. It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard to him. He is, however, very fond of many of your other poems, including this one for a windy day:

There came a wind like a bugle;
It quivered through the grass,
And a green chill upon the heat
So ominous did pass
We barred the windows and the doors
As from an emerald ghost;
The doom’s electric moccason
That very instant passed.
On a strange mob of panting trees,
And fences fled away,
And rivers where the houses ran
The living looked that day.
The bell within the steeple wild
The flying tidings whirled.
How much can come
And much can go,
And yet abide the world!

A perpetually popular topic. Continued from version 2007.4.

A place to post things you’ve written and/or to talk about writing in general. Continued from v. 2007.1.

Not to be confused with Books in Progress, which focuses on book-length writing.

How do you plan to improve your life in the coming year?

Alice launched the first RPW thread in May 2007, describing it as follows:

Everyone makes up one character (made up, mind you!) and we decide on plot, time, etc. just like usual. Then we start. It would be in the form of letters or e-mails, and we would say at the top of our post who the letter was to.

Everyone would have to read all of the posts, though, to prevent conflicting plot twists, but their character wouldn’t know about whatever the letter said unless it was addressed to them.

Get it?
If not, then phooey. That was hard to explain.

Even though the original one is still going on, we’re starting a new Role-Playing Writing thread from scratch so that newcomers and latecomers can participate. Have fun!

Last month Robert, Rebecca, Midnight Fiddler, and Red-tailed HAWK kokonvened in Washington, D.C. in order to look at art and eat lunch. At least that was the cover story. Our true purpose was to act foolish in public and pose for silly pictures.

Don’t ask. We don’t know what we were doing, either.

Kokopelli sign times four!

Many thanks to the parents who took the pictures for us!

For discussions that need to be handled with extra care. NO FLAMING.

Continued from Hot Topics, v. 2007.7.

Sorting through the triumph and wreckage of National Novel-Writing Month.

The dust has settled, the word count is in, and MuseBlog is a winner! Congratulatory pies to all!

If you’d like other MBers to read your finished (or unfinished) oeuvre, email it to gapa @ musefanpage.com (delete the spaces). We’ll post it here.

NOTE: Please use an easily identifiable subject line in your emails so we don’t mistake them for spam!

The novels are set up as individual Google documents, so click the link to view them.

Prarilius Canix Flamehenge

Cinnamon Moon Sunset in Niomahn

Kiki the Great Memoirs of a Teenage Zombie

Purple Panda: Muse Academy

::DandelionsAreWildflowers:: About Me Being Celli

Ebeth [title?]

Beavo the Online Stalker Spy Magic: Handle with Care

In which we all absorb moisture from the air, and melt. If that’s how you’re feeling, this month’s random thread is the place for you.

Users’ Manual: Obey The Rules. Consult The Guide. Have fun!

Unlike the random thread, this discussion thread stays on topic until the topic changes.

Newcomers should read The Rules and The Guide before plunging in.

Current topic: Publishing
Snow
Recent hostage-taking at Clinton campaign office

Coming soon: [any ideas?]