Karina is writing the next DragonEye, PI novel, Live and Let Fly. She's decided to blog about her process and progress. Check it out at www.fabianspace.blogspot.com.

One of my early cases is in this anthology, and Karina did the video.

Help feed the dragon. Buy the book at Amazon.com.

Sometimes, I get asked about how people react around me. Naturally, everyone's different, but after an eternity, I've gotten myself a system for gaging crowds. Imagine a 3-dimensional graph. The X axis ranges from "Run Screaming" to "Swarm the Pretty Dragon!" the Y axis goes from Disdain to Awe, and the Z axis (added for you Mundanes) ranges from "Paparazzi" to "Free Photo Op!"




I've then broken the chart into 10 areas. We begin at the origin point with Area One: Run Screaming/Return with Sharpened Pitchforks, move through environmental protestors and up until we get to school science fair projects and finally end up at Area Ten: Mobs of People Want to Take Photos of Their Kid On My Back.

Naturally, I prefer if you stay somewhere around 5 or 6.

Even though I'm not a citizen of the United States (thank the INS for that), I have a deep appreciation for this country with its many freedoms, privileges and responsibilities it takes upon itself. I also cannot die, but I've known many others who have died defending what they believed in. So today, Grace and I say thanks to the veterans of the United States and pray for the souls of those who died defending it.

--Vern and Grace

Karina is going through the transcript for Magic, Mensa and Mayhem and tells me I use passive voice too much. Know what I think? I think she should stop doing word searches for "was." Half the time I'm talking in progressive, not passive, but she's wondering if that's a problem, too.

I'm going to have a talk with her. I may need to use The Grin. In the meantime, someone sent this to Grace and she thought this is just how the Irish believe the weather should be.




God smiles on the bonnie Isle.

Wisdom of the Ages, experience of eternity... and i can't think up a stupid blog.

Go check out Karina's blog on cats.

Sorry this is late; Karina Fabian (our case transcriber) has been raving about that Catholic Writers' Conference Online she helped organize. It ended Friday. She's as bad as a High Elf! So I'm giving her the blog today--and trust me, this is the short version! BTW-the e-book is for sale to anyone, so if you missed it, feel free to contact her to order a copy ($5 for PDF, $10 for CD).

What a terrific conference! Well beyond my expectations. First, we had 300 people register--half again the goal we'd set. We had two dozen presenters with about 40 workshops or chats in all covering everything from plotting out your story to working with your editor to marketing your book. Here were a few of my favorites:

Mark Shea kicked things off with a wonderful discussion on How Faith Connects Everything. I moderated this one, and it got a little out of hand from the moderating POV because opinions and ideas just flew. However, Mark summed it up this way: "It is our right and proper mission, not to spend all our time fussing about the arrangements of the sanctuary, but bringing Christ into the world. The last words of the Mass, properly translated, are "Go! You are sent" That's how I see my work as a writer." Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff's chats on plot and showing characterization had excellent advice and practical examples. The day after the conference, I whipped out a short story and the entire time, I kept "hearing" her remind me about what we'd learned.

"Writing with Faith and Without Bias" was another fun and practical chat. Woodeene Koenig-Bricker has a nice direct style and a fun way of putting things. "(When interviewing someone whose religious beliefs are radically different from mine) At times I've approached it as I would feeding time for the reptiles at the zoo. 'My my, that snake just ate a live rat. Well, isn't that interesting?' Not, "Oh gag, I could never eat a rat.'"

I could rave about all the chats, but let's move on to forums before Vern decides to eat me.

Forums didn't work as well as chats this time. I think we didn't give a good enough focus on how they could best be used, so some folks didn't know how to handle them. However, a few were excellent with a lot of participation and attendees getting some one-on-one coaching from a person experienced in the field.

I think Branding and Marketing was a big hit, especially considering that Audrey Shaffer slid into the schedule at the last minute. (Thanks, Audrey!) The Daily Devotional workshop with Patricia Punt was also very well-received. (I'm betting the DD magazines are going to love some of the submissions they receive in the coming months.)

I personally got a lot out of Michelle Buckman's The Right Details and Sylvia Dorham's Character and Dialog. I love forum workshops with writing exercises. It gives my brain a chance to twist them into my genre. (Sylvia asked us to do dialog between two characters we'd made--with them seeing a tornado. My characters were a computer hacker and his confessor for a cyberpunk story I want to write. Cyberpunk with a Tornado!" OO! And I just came up with the next scene! See why these workshops are so great?)

Then of course, there were the pitch sessions. You know how some writers conferences arrange for folks to spend 10 minutes with an editor to pitch their work? We re-created it in cyberspace! Terry Burns, agent, graciously critiqued query letters in his forum workshop and asked to see proposals on some.

Pauline Press's pitch session relied on us having two chat rooms--one where Sr. Maria Grace Dateno, Sr. Christina Wegendt and Diane Lynch would chat privately with the pitcher and one where folks hung out until it was their turn. So doesn't it figure that that was the ONE TIME the website went down, trapping us in the single chat room? While Ann made a desperate call to the host provider to get it straightened out, I opened up the chat room on the website and directed people there. People were already nervous, then to have to deal with tech errors and website hopping--plus a few had problems with the copy and paste function! One pitcher joked about resisting the urge to throw up on her keyboard. But for all that, it went amazing well, with most of the pitchers invited to send on the manuscript or proposal. Those that didn't get invited simply had books that didn't fit Pauline Books and Media's needs.

I think about 75 percent of the attendees were not used to the chat room/forum environment, and the website had such a problem with cookies that we had to wonder if it was on a diet. However, overall, the conference was a huge success and we're looking forward to doing it next year.

Thanks again to Ann Lewis for getting the website together and to Heidi Hess Saxton for recruiting such great presenters. The conference was co-sponsored by the Catholic Writers Guild and Canticle Magazine.

Look at the post about working at 911 before you read this. Here are the replies I'd be tempted to say to the cop who got high on marijuana brownies and called 911. Now you can see why I would not be hired.

1. I'll start talking really slow one minute, really fast the next.
2. "If you see a white light, don't walk toward it."
3. "We've dispatched a priest to administer Last rites..."
4. "You know, you're the seventh caller who's told me about this time thing. Maybe it's not the brownies!"
5. "Help is on the way. In the meantime, do not operate any heavy machinery."
6. "We've dispatched someone. It may take a while. Longer while for you than me, apparently."
7. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
8. "You do realize you're talking to a dragon, right?"
9. "We need to reset your internal clock. I want you to go to the Start menu..."
10. "That's what you get for not sharing"

Maybe when I get bored with being a private investigator, I'll go work at 911. It's worthwhile work. Besides, every now and then I might get a call like this:



Then again, they might fire me for messing with the guy's mind while he waits for "help" to arrive.

Most humans miss this the first time. How do you rate?