I’m looking for a few good ninjas…

I went to a casual write-in at the home of a good friend last night, and for the fun of it I wore one of my favorite novelty T-shirts, the ‘Sneaky like ninja’ from Sick on Sin. Fantasy Writer Guy spotted the design as I came into the room, and we had an interchange that to me, perfectly sums up the fun of that design:

FWG: Are those cupcakes?
Me: Yes – except for the one that’s a ninja.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a full series of Spotlight interviews – not counting the few that I included in the A-Z challenge when I had absolutely nothing else to use on a tough letter of the alphabet, and the ‘Spotlight on Chris’ that I half-completed in late March. So, it’s time again.

From now through July 10th, I want to spotlight writing ninjas, from the Writer’s Dojo. The Dojo does run it’s own ‘Novel Ninja’ feature, but hopefully my spotlights will have more unexpected questions than those articles.

So – if you’re a Dojo ninja and want to step into my spotlight, just leave a comment to this post or contact me via email at chrisken zero at gmail dot com . I’ll be trying to visit a lot of fellow ninjas and dropping links to invite them to participate over the coming weeks.

Here’s what to expect for the spotlight – I’ll send you some offbeat questions to answer, and maybe one ordinary one that I’ll ask every ninja. You’ll also be able to tell us all about your blog or your latest book, and share a pretty picture if you like.

I’m looking forward to seeing a lot more ninjas around here. Or maybe not seeing them, if their ninja mojo is strong enough…

WordPress 3.4 is a little less than it should be… but they fixed it!

I ran into an unexpected hurdle yesterday as I published my blog post, because the Dashboard page that I use to compose a new post had changed. Usually, there’s the Dashboard menu on the left side of the screen, the textbox where I type my words for you in the middle, and a handy column of control ‘modules’ on the right, where I push the big button to post the entry, preview it, schedule it, and where I enter the tags and categories for the post.

Now, when I write a post on my netbook, the text entry area stretches all the way to the right edge of the screen, and so does every other module. It’s really annoying, as the netbook screen isn’t very high, and so I have to scroll up and down to go from the text to the tags, or anything like that.

Spotlight on Chris: Seven things that often cross my mind

You might know the drill by now…

So, seven things that often cross my mind:

‘Hang those who talk of less!’ (Whenever I wonder about if I need more or would like more of something-or-other.)

Did I remember to take my pills?

How’s my calendar doing for the day – what letters have I got? What can I still get?

That’s a good idea – I should remember to write that.

Did I lock the door?

Oooh – she’s really cute!

Did I remember to bring my ______? (Usually about some kind of small digital gizmo.)

Spotlight on Chris – if I had Five million dollars…

The reflection challenge continues…

If I won five million dollars in the lottery – well, for one, it would be a bit surprising that I’d even play the lottery, but let’s not dwell on that now. And figuring out just what I should spend the money on would probably be very stressful if it did happen, but I’ve come up with some ideas that I can share with you, that will hopefully tell you a little about me.

I’d give big gifts of no-strings-attached money to my immediate adult family members, to spread the wealth and the stress around a little.

Arrange somewhat more modest presents for my nieces and nephew, plus college funds.

And smaller gifts for more distant family, ex-work colleagues, (yeah, I’d quit the job,) writing buddies, and casual friends.

Make a special charitable donation in memory of my father.

Look into setting up a scholarship for science fiction and fantasy writers wanting to attend any kind of workshop or course, but not able to afford the tuition or other expenses.

Some other charitable donations – I’m not quite sure who I’d give to, which is something that bears thinking about even in the absence of lottery winnings.

Go on a world tour – I want to see Chicago, New York, Paris, and Rome for sure. Other destinations To Be Determined.

Buy myself a nice (but not flashy) new car, and maybe a condo in Toronto.

Consider investing in a small press – I wouldn’t want to set one up myself, but if I find somebody who I really think could do well in publishing with some seed money, I’d want to be able to provide some.

Put a lot of it into savings for later – so that I could work on writing or other projects full-time without needing to work, travel more, spoil myself a little with impulse buys – and get the max donation level for every Office of Letters and Light event for many, many years.

Spotlight: Chris’ Desert Island Discs

Skipping ahead a little in Rich’s original challenge, today I’m sharing my top 20 favorite albums, and a little bit about why I like each one. I’m limiting myself to one custom compilation, (more about that later,) though commercial ‘best of’s and anthologies are fair game. In alphabetical order:

And then we wrote, Flanders and Swann and Swann, with friends. I love nearly all of Flanders and Swann’s music, but this one is dear to me for more than just the great numbers from their musical revue days like “Excelsior” and “The Lord Chamberlain’s Regulations.” It’s a classic that’s never been released onto CD as far as I know, but I fondly remember listening to my Dad’s vinyl record. (Now I listen to the digitized version.)

Camelot. Another vinyl classic from my Dad’s collection. Knights singing show tunes – gotta love it.

Dreams, by the Corrs. Thanks very much to the Irish band for releasing this cut, a mix of covers and best-of, so that I don’t need to agonize over which studio album I’d take to the desert island for a Corrs fix.

Dress Rehearsal, by the amazing Canadian singer and songwriter, Carolyn Dawn Johnson. This album comes to mind as a tour de force of the songwriter’s art, from the lyric poignancy of the title track, “I’ll let you go”, and “Just another plane,” to the energy and fun of “He’s Mine.”

The Essential Billy Joel. I discovered Billy Joel’s music late, after noting down a song playing in a coffee shop that I wanted to look up, which was “The Longest Time.” ‘The Essential’ was the first step in my journey of discovery, and well worth it.

Face to the Gale, by Ron Hynes. I remember hearing “Godspeed” on the radio when I was in University, and loving it, but I didn’t get the album until much later, and I really like the music, as it comes crashing in with the power of a Newfoundland storm behind tracks like “The Final Breath” and “Saint John’s Waltz.”

Mission – Spotlight on Chris, day 1

Okay, so, the Fourth Campaign has wrapped up, I’ve got nearly two weeks before the A-Z challenge starts, so I’m going to start a new series and put myself under the spotlight.

This is inspired by FantasyWriterGuy’s Two weeks of reflection challenge, but I’ve decided that I’m going to tweak the prompts as well as the timing that FWG laid out, just because some of them are really more personal than I want to get, and I’d rather do substitutions or skip rather than do a lot of excessive tap-dancing around the raw subjects.

But today, I’m doing pretty much by the book – Share ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.

1. Thank you so much for all of the time you’ve spent helping me practice over the past year. I couldn’t have done it without you.

2. What’s going on in your life now? Are you doing okay? I’ve been wanting to say something since you cancelled.

3. Are you having technical problems returning my call, or are you just too busy?

4. Take care of yourself, and feel better soon.

5. We really are going to fight zombies sometime – my evenings are just crazy right now.

6. You do a lot that nobody in the group sees to keep things running smoothly, and I’m so grateful for it, and the way you’ve welcomed a loner boy from Hamilton.

7. I love you very much.

8. It’s been so long since we’ve talked – how’s the family doing? What have you been up to lately?

9. I’ve never done this before, so tell me – what do I need to ask you about buying a car?

10. Good luck with labelling and commenting on chapters four through ten!

I’ll see you soon with another dose of sharing!

Strangely unique: about pens and handwriting.

Okay, first off, the good news – my homework for my Holly Lisle lesson three is done, finally! Fifty-one scenes from ‘Won’t somebody think of the children’ on four by six index cards, after nearly two weeks.

Part of the reason that it took so long was that I was filling out the cards by hand, with a pen, since the instructions warned strenuously against using ‘software index cards’, and I don’t currently have a typewriter that can handle index cards.

I don’t like handwriting. I don’t have very legible handwriting, except maybe when I’m right in the zone AND taking a lot of time to be very careful about it. Actually, I never have legible cursive handwriting. I sometimes have half-decent hand-printing, when I’m in the zone and taking a lot of time to be very careful about it.

And when I’m not in the zone, it sucks a lot of energy out of me to have to keep handwriting. Sigh.

One of the things that I was reminded of while doing these index cards was the very strange way that I have of holding pens and pencils. I don’t really remember when I picked up this very peculiar habit, but I think that I was probably around grade three when somebody with the school got the notion of making me print with rubber things slipped onto my pencils to try and break me of it. That plan didn’t last for too long.

Okay, here’s how most people normally hold a pen, I think. Apologies for the picture quality, it’s a bit hard to take a picture of your right hand with your left:

Thank you for four hundred!

Well, this is my four-hundredth post, and I’d like to thank all of my readers for giving me the support and encouragement to make it this far.

And, so, what better time to send shoutouts to the most valuable people who have helped make the Kelworth Files what it is today. In alphabetical order:

Arlee Bird:  Arlee is one of the shining lights of the blogosphere, of course, patron of the A to Z challenge and a regularly seen avatar in the platform-building campaigns and challenges. I always look forward to seeing a comment from Arlee, be it about books, business cards, or public transit – and I’m looking forward to the 2012 A to Z! Thanks so much, Arlee.

Avatar139: Big shout-outs to the first guy to volunteer to be a guest post author for the Kelworth Files, of course. He’s also expressed some interesting thoughts in comments on my post, talking about his muse and his feminine side, LARPing, and writing for the money.

A different kind of blog anniversary today.

Hey, everybody. First off, today is the last day of voting for the Rule of Three blogfest shortlist. I didn’t even make the long list, but I had a great time on my creative trip to Renaissance, and there’s some really great stories to read and vote for!

Moving on – today will be my 365th post, which kinda seems cool enough to celebrate, and maybe even look back and commemorate where I’ve come. First off, I’d like to give a little shout-out to my followers and readers, and all the friends that I’ve made over this blogging journey so far. Thank you so much for every kind word, every insight you’ve shared, and just for being there.

And as an anniversary present to myself and my readers alike… I put together a unique little highlights reel. This list has 12 posts that I always rather liked, but never seemed to make much of a splash. Maybe if I plug them hard enough, one of them will get a comment.

1. Please allow myself to introduce… myself
2. In search of some good feedback swaps
3. Switching POV and voice
4. Locked inside by my own fear
5. A little netbook trouble
6. Ran out of snowflake. (Nanowrimo 2010, day 20)
7. New goals for December
8. Getting published – what’s the next step?
9. Another Brian Henry exercise to share
10. The first Kansas stories binder
11. Blogosphere spotlight: Cerebral Lunchbox
12. Campaigner spotlight: It’s better than you think.

Hopefully, I’ll be meeting you all in the blogosphere for years and years (and thousands of posts) to come!

A self-introduction for my campaigner friends.

Hey there, I’ve noticed a few people already dropping by from the Platform-building Campaign. I’m afraid I won’t be able to make the rounds myself until I’m back from Dragon*Con, so I’ll be starting around Tuesday, but I thought I’d say a few things about myself so that fellow Campaigners, especially my group-mates, will be able to get a sense out of who this Chris Kelworth guy is.

I’m Canadian. I get a steady paycheque for programming field service technician websites. I write science fiction and fantasy, for middle grade through adult readers. I’m trying to focus on rewriting my collection of short stories and submitting them to publishers.

I’m a huge fan of many things: Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Doctor Horrible, Doctor Who, Star Trek. I love to read Diane Duane young wizard books, just about anything by Larry Niven but especially Known Space, and also Madeleine L’Engle, Anne McCaffrey, Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea books, and Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni series. I’ve recently discovered the fun of going to fan conventions – which is what brings be to Atlanta this coming long weekend. (Never been to a convention as high-profile as Dragon*Con before, though.)

I have created fan fiction, fan art, and fan videos. I have a fairly impressive collection of portable digital electronic devices, and love to write my own apps for them when I can. I’m love National Novel Writing Month, Script Frenzy, and several other online writing challenges, and belong to a few local writer’s circles and critique workshops. I love playing games of many types, though I’m not a serious gamer in any particular type, such as console or tabletop RPG.

Thank you so much for dropping by. If you’re a campaigner, please use the ‘follow that blog’ widget or the NetworkedBlogs box to subscribe to the Kelworth Files, and leave a reply telling me something about you!