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Monthly Archives: January 2007
Monthly Archives: January 2007
While Tyranosauros Rex sleeps, I am taking the time to try to write. I’m finding it hard to concentrate on my WIP (work in progress). My rule for myself is that I have to write something every day, no matter how crappy it is or on what story. So I am working right now on a short sf story set in an sf universe I call the “Xenophile” universe after my main storyline there.
This particular story is about parents who are trying to raise an alien baby.
Hm. Is that scaple a little too close to the artery? Hee hee. It’s really terrible, I’ve wanted to do a Mother Gives Birth To Alien story ever since I was pregnant. The premise of tv series like “Smallville” and “Roswell” is that every teenager feels like an alien just trying to fit in at one point. This is the same thing, but from the parents’ point of view. Maybe it’s just me, or maybe all parents at one time feel like their offspring are the first wave of an alien invasion.
Trying to understand what a baby is thinking IS like trying to read an alien mind. That was the starting point of my story, “FAQs for Adoptive Parents of Converted Extraterrestrial Children (CETs).”
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My little boy crawled for the first time on January 7, 2007. Yes, I wrote it in my calender. 🙂 He was only four months, three weeks old at the time. Now, five months and counting, he’s crawling all over the place.
Well, specifically, he’s crawling under my office chair, squeaking to be picked up. His idea of a good day is one spent entirely in my lap, alternated only with periods of time spent in his daddy’s lap. Since we both work at home, he sees no logical reason this can’t happen. What are parents for?
My mom says I’m spoiling him. (Ha! She should talk. She raised two of the most spoiled kids ever!)
But I’m not spoiling him! I am more than ruthless enough to let him cry himself silly on his playmat until he figures out that he can entertain himself with his toys for at least one fifteen minute period during the day. But we have no playpen for him yet and no matter how often I return him to his playmat and the company of his toys, HE JUST CRAWLS BACK UNDER MY CHAIR! Now, do you know how dangerous it is to have a baby under an office chair? I have one of those imposing, black Dark Side of the Force thrones, with a mesh back and pentaped rollar bottom. It rolls around on a plastic floor mat over the carpet in the room that serves as my office/baby’s playroom.
Silly woman, you are thinking at this point. Why didn’t she just purchase a playpen?
There is a good excuse for this too! First of all, the things they pass off as playpens in Target and Walmart are pathetic. They are so cramped, I don’t see how the little buggers have room to turn over, never mind crawl, flip, kick and stand and all the other things he’s doing. So we ordered a gym mat and plasti-fence system on-line. Unfortunately, by the time these items ship here, my son will probably have already figured out how to strap on his crampons and use his Black Diamond Viper Ice Pick to scale out of it.
You can see proof here: http://www.lotsalaus.com/tyr_crawling.html
By now you have probably figured out that this entire entry is just to serve two purposes:
1. Boast about the fact that my baby learned to crawl when he was only 4 m 3 wks old, when the average baby doesn’t crawl until 7 to 9 months
2. Give a pathetic sob story about why I didn’t finish this month’s writing quota.
Hm. I feel better!
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Obviously, I haven’t been blogging much recently, so what have I been up to? Mmm. Well. As all you millions of die-hard Tara Maya fans know, my stories Drawn to the Brink and Portrait of a Pretender are set in a world where magic can bring paintings to life.
So it’s probably not surprising that I also paint. You can even visit my eBay store, Lau Studios. I write under a pen name, but I paint under my real name, Christine Lau. Recently I started a new series of paintings of urban fairies, called Mimsykins. I will start putting them up for auction in February. You can also see some of my paintings in the Saatchi Gallery.
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My short story, “Portrait of a Pretender” is now available from Amazon Shorts.
Right now it is on page 11, rank 124 of 2,892 results. Please buy a copy and help move it up!
It’s only 49 cents.
A while ago, I started another story in the Brink universe, but I never finished it. I didn’t expect this story to be available so soon. I supposed I had better start cracking on the sequel!
Remember, the other story set in the same universe is still available too, in WomanScapes
The Amazon Short Portrait of a Pretender is less than two quarters, and WomanScapes, while a bit more at $16, goes to help starving orphans.
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