Pab Sungenis
Pab Sungenis's JournalGot trapped in a jury duty death spiral.
Called for jury duty on this post: http://www.democraticunderground.com/124063634#post7
Tried to cast my initial vote and was told this:
The message wasn't deleted, so that wasn't the case. And it kept me trapped in jury duty until I cancelled out.
Bug?
“Okay, from now on I’ll call you ‘paranoid schizophrenic with psychotic tendencies.’”
http://cnx.com/?p=1711
More at the link.
Urgent prayer request
This message arrived in my inbox today from a longtime friend regarding a cousin of mine:
Chris and her family need your prayers. Her son Ben was hit by a car which strayed off the road last Sunday. It threw Ben 76 feet.. After being air lifted to the hospital the doctors gave Chris very little hope of his survival.
Ben is hanging in there, he did not have a leg amputated as first thought, is breathing on his own, did respond to some commands. Brain injuries are not able to be determined at this point.
I wanted all of you to know what was happening, and send your blessings so Ben can continue to recover miraculously!
I will keep you all updated.
Please send prayers/vibes/positive energy his way. Thank you.
'Junct: The Trashing of Higher Education in America - trailer
Upcoming documentary by Chris Labree, produced by Chris Labree and Deborah Lee Scott.
Looking forward to seeing this one, especially since I have so many friends in academia.
Tweet from August J. Pollak
https://twitter.com/#!/AugustJPollak/status/175228690123325440"I demand copies of Andrew Brietbart's long form death certificate."
I come to bury Breitbart, not to praise him.
They say not to speak ill of the dead. That's very hard to do in the case of someone like Andrew Breitbart, since he made his career of off saying nothing but ill of other people.
Andrew Breitbart was a petty little man who used lies, distortions, and a well-funded media megaphone to make people's lives miserable. He was a megalomaniac who destroyed the lives of many people, both public and private figures.
My sympathies to his loved ones. There must have been some aspects of him that you saw that we did not. I hope you make these facets known in the coming days. And I hope that he may finally find the peace that he denied so many others at long last.
Help me brainstorm something.
When I started writing my novel The Sidekick (coming March, 2013, from Month 9 Books -- how good it feels to say that) I wanted my hero to be a High School Senior trying to get into college. I also wanted his foster father to have been recently killed, setting the plot into motion. I didn't want to bother much with having him deal with CPS or DYFS as a result of this, so the easiest answer to it was to start the book on his 18th birthday.
Now my publisher wants the protagonist to be 17 in the first novel and 19 in the sequel I never even dreamed of writing.
I'm not philosophically opposed to having him only be 17, and since the kid is reasonably bright I could always use the "skipped a grade" excuse if needed. Likewise, I could have used the "held back" trope if needed to have him graduating late. But what I can't find my way around is having a minor, even a 17 year old, just left on his own by the state and the school system.
So here are some questions:
(1) The novel starts in January, just as kids are coming back from winter break. It opens with our protagonist at his foster father's funeral on his birthday. For various reasons I would rather not move his birthday or the funeral. I like having both be happening at the same time and the "trying to get into college" subplot works best in that current time frame. For a January birth, at what age would an average kid graduate from High School nowadays? 17 or 18?
(2) Is there any conceivable way for a 17 year old whose long-term foster father has died to be emancipated easily, quickly, and painlessly? Help me figure out a way.
Of course, this is a superhero novel aimed at young adults so it doesn't need to be so horribly close to reality, but I'd at least like it to be plausible.
Ideas?
Help me get two of the "Queen Victoria" books back into print! (a Kickstarter project)
http://kck.st/xOtwSS
?1328590493
Since November of 2006, I have published collected editions of my daily comic strip, "The New Adventures of Queen Victoria." This has always been done at my own expense, largely for the fans of the strip and so I will have something to take around with me to comic conventions.
In recent weeks I finally ran out of copies of the fourth collection, "Suffragettes Gone Wild!" Also, "Meet The Royals" (the omnibus edition reprinting the first three collections) has only ever had short print runs to fill online orders and to give me a few copies to take along with me as I go to cons.
Since I hope to greatly expand my convention schedule this year (I've already scheduled for cons in Chicago and Asbury Park, NJ, and am working on appearances in Louisville, Baltimore, and Toronto) I need to get these two books back into print as fast as possible. I'd also like to get "Meet The Royals" a proper, professional print run instead of the bargain-basement discount short runs I've had to do up to this point for a book that thick.
Reprinting "Suffragettes Gone Wild!" will cost me a little over $350.00. A full print run for "Meet The Royals" will add another $640.00 onto that. Then factoring in shipping, costs of premiums, and credit card fees brings me to just about $1,300.00 total for the two books. I don't want to be greedy, so that's what I'm asking for.
With these two books out of print, it means that the first four years of the strip are no longer available in hard copy form. Please help me remedy this by sponsoring their long-overdue second printings.
I'm offering a number of interesting premiums, ranging from doodles on postcards from my stops on the convention circuit to a chance to appear in the strip yourself. Go take a look and help me get my books back into print.
The words we all hope to hear...
Still need to find a lawyer to look over the deal memo and hopefully an agent to undertake the negotiations.
Profile Information
Member since: 2003 before July 6thNumber of posts: 9,612