Tab Round-up

The dayjob ramped up in intensity this week, which has been rough on my writing life. I’m a couple of days behind on prompts, but I’ve got a three day weekend and enough time and quiet that I’m pretty sure I’ll not only catch up but hopefully finish some work that’s been gathering dust in the wings.

And yet, tonight I’m working on some character sketching for the novel because I ran slap-bang into my protagonist on Wednesday afternoon and need to get him written down before he wanders off to be in someone else’s book.

I feel bad about this because I owe things to four people — one thing in the mail, two things in public pixels, and one thing in e-mail — but none of those things are things I can do/send/finish tonight. Putting an hour’s work off because of things I’m better equipped to tackle when I’m fresher is no less guilt-inducing, and definitely more crazy-making. SO.

And now, to clear some tabs:
- If you’re a creative type, or if you’re the sort who loves to read amazing things by people who’d like you to make donations to charity, please check out Crossed Genre’s donation drive, Post a Story for Haiti.
- If you’re a fannish type, check out the Help Haiti auction on LiveJournal.
- Dreamwidth’s business is sustaining an organized attack similar to the efforts that perpetuated the LiveJournal Strikethrough a couple of years back. They’re not asking for financial support, but PayPal has withdrawn their services and DW is having to seek another merchant processor. I’m not an avid Dreamwidth user, but I believe in what they do, and want to show my support for them as advocates of free speech by boosting the signal.
- Google may be backing out of business China after a hack attack that appears to have targeted Chinese human rights activists. According to the Official Google Blog, “These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all.” This is…well, it’s a big deal in terms of free speech advocacy and exchange of ideas. I have to applaud Google for having a sudden attack of principle on the topic, and will be curious to see how this pans out.
- Sam Starbuck, a shadowy, accident-prone presence who lives, works, and produces extribula (like Nameless) in the Chicago area, confessed to cheating on his current work in progress so that he could work on something else: a novel about the non-profit sector called Charitable Getting. I love Sam even though I hate him for being a goddamn genius. Go read his stuff. He’s good.
- I just found out today that Miep Gies has passed away. Gies was the last surviving member of the household that took in Anne Frank’s family, and was instrumental in keeping her diary intact. She was 100.
- Mighty Joe Rollino, one of the last of a generation’s carnival strongmen died at 104 after being struck by a minivan during a morning walk earlier this week. His whole story feels historical and alien, and yet there’s a photo of him from last year looking (to me, at least) barely a spry seventy.

And now, back to my (ir)regularly scheduled character sketching.

This post has been mirrored from Christian A. Young's Dimlight Archive. To see it in its original format, visit dimlightarchive.com