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IT'S FRIDAY. TIME FOR A PHOTO POST.

And also for icons! Behind the cut 'cause there are White Collar icons -- I don't think they're spoilery, there are no guest stars or spoilery props in them, but one never knows. Anyway, the icons are free for use, credit is nice but not required, and please feel free to take bases and pervert them for your own nefarious ends. But you might come back and share them, because I love a good nefarious end.

Teasers!


( White Collar, half-naked women, and Marlon Brando with a cat. )

This picture is kinda large, but I think it's pretty awesome -- the building actually is curved, which is kind of nightmarish, and the rest of the distortion is from taking a panoramic two-part image. Came out well, I think.

This is St. Pat's, just outside of Greektown, and I stopped to take a nice photo of it without realising there was A FUNERAL going on. Way to go, Sam.

"I'm supposed to have lunch at Greek Islands. I've never been to Greektown. I wonder if I'll spot it. How will I know where it...ohhhh."

Block 37 is a new mall downtown, though it's been a long time in the building. Its benches are all mosaic tile, and in this case the mosaic is a map of the Chicago Loop, with the mall picked out in red. MY ASS SAT ON MILLENNIUM PARK. :D

THANK YOU, CTA. I am so tired of following people trying to get through a revolving door with a stroller.

I mentioned that I didn't like Apart Pizza's pie, but they do this amazing dessert of pizza crust rolled up with Nutella. Om nom nom.

By request, my glasses! The glasses in the back are my old ones, the black frames in the front are my new.

Livejournal's new weapon to combat spammers is the "suspicious comment" feature. I was not aware of this, and the first time I saw it I couldn't help but LAUGH MY ASS OFF. Now, this feature screens comments with links to "non whitelisted" sites, which is kind of useless since I as the poster still get the spam and now I have to delete the spam AND unscreen the comments. If you're dealing with the same issue, you can check out the news post to find out how to turn it off.

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So, I read Lulu.com's blog, because Lulu's been pretty good to me and I am interested in this whole self-publishing thing in a major way. But there is...some chaff in with the wheat.

JUST FOR EXAMPLE, today's Lulu Blog entry is Fun Ways To Improve Your Next Book. My immediate thought was about structure and content and how to make a book more appealing to the reader. That makes sense, right?

Their tips are as follows:

1. Join a writing group.
2. Use Google Docs.

I just about died. I know that I'm not the typical Lulu user, but still. Writing groups and google docs? That's the content of your blog post? Because even Lulu's most basic users are usually aware of the concept of the writing group. Indeed, most of them are products of writing groups. And nothing against writing groups, they can be awesome and useful. But they're not exactly a revolutionary concept. This is stuff you put up in a sidebar or a links list, not stuff you actually blog about.

I feel like I should offer to blog for Lulu, but I am also of the school that believes that personal processes for creativity are often difficult if not impossible to communicate, and might be useless to another person even if you could. This makes for some inhibited blogging on the subject of writing. Plus the biggest problem in self-publishing is marketing, and while I have worked in PR I'm damned if I know how to market my books. I built an audience and then wrote a book, which is the wrong way round to do it, and even then I don't know how that happened. I mean I kind of do, but it's not like I could re-create it in a lab or anything.

BUT. If I had to offer two fun tips to "improve your next book" that not everyone and their brother knows, it would be these:

1. Write fanfic about your characters. No, seriously. I never actually wrote stuff down, but I wrote fanfic in my head about Nameless and Dead Isle all the time, and I took a lot of theoretical side trips in CG, some of which became major plot points. Fanfic of your own characters serves two purposes: it gives you forks in the path that you can take when you're working, and it satisfies the urge to write ridiculous self-indulgent shit. A statistic I have made up but which is borne out by anecdotal evidence says that 80% of all bad books are the result of writing the story that satisfies your ego rather than the best story you can write. It is totally fine to write self-indulgently, it fills an emotional purpose, but unless you're China Mieville you probably won't get it published. (Oh snap. Sorry, City & The City is legitimately great, he should write more Like That.)

2. Researching a book is like a million times more interesting than most research you will do in your life, and you should do a lot of it, and you should let your research abduct you now and again. It's important to know what to put into a book and what to leave out -- sometimes it's painful to leave out some REALLY INTERESTING FACTOID -- but it fulfills the requirements of a) being fun and b) improving your book. Wikiwandering isn't limited to people with too much time on their hands; following obscure research paths is a legitimate use of your time as a writer. (It is also a major component of the answer to the "where do you get your ideas" question.)

And those are my Fun Tips. HAVE FUN. *jazzhands*

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THERE'S SOME DRAMA ALL UP IN HERE TODAY.

So, I got the rejection letter for the job I applied for today, but that is not the drama. The drama is that right after I got the rejection letter, I got an email from that department's admin, ENRAGED, not because I didn't get the job but because she just found out they offered someone else the job weeks ago, and were waiting for that person to make up their mind to take it before they told me I didn't get it. THAT'S RIGHT: I WAS THE SAFETY SCHOOL.

Not getting a job is one thing, twisting for weeks when the job has already been offered to someone else is quite another.

Anyway, she's furious, and HR's probably in trouble for running their mouth to other people about applying for my job -- which is still mine, obviously -- and the whole thing is just kind of hilarious and horrifying and hilarious again. It's like watching that video of the rogue tire. You know you shouldn't laugh, but it's so dramatic and unexpected you can't help it.

Just for the record: I am okay. I had an awesome resume and I can't imagine how I could have done better in the interviews, so clearly the decision was out of my control, and my self-esteem is undamaged. Besides, there is some monkey business going on of which frankly I want no part. I have a job that I love, that pays me a living wage and gives me benefits. And hopefully the new hire is what's best for the company, and this company's wellbeing is something I am invested in. I'm not thrilled about not getting the job, naturally, but if that's the worst that happens to me this week I'm doing fine.