Archive for March, 2009
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LUNACY at the Key Arena in Seattle!!!
Robots pelting one another with Moon Rocks
It just doesn’t get better than that!Team 360, sponsored by Boeing, Fikret Yuksel Foundation, Robin Hobb, Trillian Dental, and Parents of Bellarmine Robotic and Bellarmine Prep will be rocking the Key Arena in Seattle this weekend in the Microsoft Seattle Regional F.I.R.S.T. Robotics Competition. Of course, there will be 63 other high school teams there, but this is the one I’ll be watching.
FIRST, for those unfamiliar with the organization, stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. It was founded by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway. Its mission is to inspire young people to enter the fields of science and technology by creating exciting programs that create fun and innovation as students learn science, engineering and technology skills
Competitive robots are only part of it, of course, but they create wonderful spectacle each year as teams are given a kit of basic parts and a challenge that they must meet. This year’s challenge includes robots that may weigh up to 120 pounds each and must maneuver on a surface that mimics some of the low gravity conditions of the moon, while attempting to launch ‘moon rocks’ into the rival robot’s trailer. Some rocks may be thrown by human members of the team, but seven of the rocks are dealt to the robot.
http://ahsrobotics.us/first/lunacy.html gives a much better explanation and illustration than is possible here.
On of the most unique attributes of the FIRST competitions is that teams are encouraged to form alliances and work together, both on and off the field. Not only does this make the contest more interesting, it gives tech minded kids the opportunity to interact with others in an arena that recognizes that engineering and technology can be fun.
The FIRST program has many levels, including FIRST Lego League, a program that is appropriate for children as young as 9, with Junior FIRST Lego League reaching out of kids as young as 6.
If you’re in the Seattle area, drop by the Key Arena to catch some of the action. You won’t be sorry.
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A Fantasy Medley is nearly sold out
SOOOO, If you want a copy of this anthology from Subterranean Press, you’d best order one soon!
That’s the Amazon link. I know it says the book isn’t available yet, but it looks as if the pre-orders will consume the whole run.
In addition to my story, "Words Like Coins", set in the Farseer universe, you will find Kate Elliott’s "River of Death", Kelley Armstrong’s "Zen and the Art of Vampirism" and C.E. Murphy’s "From Russia With Love".
Subterranean Press puts out lovely little hardbacks, and I’ve been very pleased to be part of this project.
Robin
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back to work
Tomorrow.
Today I’m doing a general tidy up of things, nothing strenuous. Still trying to remember how to have a day off.
Tomorrow I plunge headfirst into the edits for volume two of Dragon Keeper. We are still mulling how the titles will be done.
I need to reintroduce the story and characters, but briefly, in a way that jumps right back into the story and advances the plot at the same time. So that means a pretty good overhaul of what was chapter 17 to make it a functional chapter one.
I also have to write all the ‘bird bits’, the between chapters pieces that help the reader remember there is a wider world than what my characters are experiencing, and help them to keep track of how time is passing.
And all the while, as I go through every chapter, word by word, I’ll be looking for things to fix, ways to tighten it up, make it more clever, more exciting, more clear, make the characters more interesting, the story more compelling, and ultimately, to deliver a satisfying ending.
But that is tomorrow.
Robin
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Done!
I slept from 11:30 PM to 6:15 this morning. Almost 7 hours! And now I’m feeling almost human again.
This only makes sense if you know that for the past week, I’ve been on the ‘must have it presentable for production by Thursday’ treadmill. Intersecting that treadmill and intermittently slamming both my editor and me to the ground was the treadmill of the evil formatting fairy. She was doing lovely things such as taking immaculately edited prose and abruptly destroying all the UK punctuation, but keeping the spelling, while reverting it back to one of my earlier files.
How this was happening, I don’t know. Intermittently, a black dashed line would leap into the manuscript. It could not be deleted, and could only be vanquished by cutting several lines of prose above and below it and then retyping those lines. Cut and paste just brough it back. And then, two pages later, the black dashed line would abruptly reappear, chortling and snorting.
In the end we resorted to me typing out my changes separately, such as,
Page 45, line 27.
He has lived with them for five years, not three. Delete three, enter five.Not so bad But imagine whole paragraphs sometimes. For 593 pages. Working with an editor whose life is 8 hours askew from mine.
Midway through, for reasons best known only to us, we decided to embed an extra plot thread. About pigeons. And, yes, the organ transplant was successful, blood started pumping through the new characters immediately, and the novel accepted the plot thread as a natural part of its anatomy.
So, the last week has been a marathon of editing. Today, in a backwater of almost silence following the last flurry of exchanges this morning, I look around at my trashed out office and neglected house.
Who left dirty coffee cups everywhere? Why are there literally drifts of doghair in the corners of every room? The laundry heaps look as if I’m running an orphanage for neighborhood clothing in search of a shower. The bathroom sink could be one you find in a gas station along Interstate 5. Ew, ew and ew.
So, of course, I immediately realized that what I really needed to do was update my various and sundry blogs.
And here we are.
Robin
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Free E-Books!
This is a promotion from Random House. They are offering free the ‘first in a series’. So Assassin’s Apprentice is there, for free download, aswell as many other cool books.
If you enjoy e-books, check it out and add something new to your library!
This is a good website to bookmark, as they do a lot of nice promotional stuff.
Robin