Author Archives: Gray Rinehart

Trinoc*coN Report

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Today I made it to the last bit of Trinoc*coN, the local Raleigh-Durham SF&F convention.

I caught the tail end of a panel on whether Harry Potter is destined to become a literary classic (the panelists and audience were each about evenly split between “yes” and “maybe”), then was on a panel about the paranormal in fiction and nonfiction. We had an interesting discussion amongst ourselves until a few audience members straggled in … but such is the hazard of Sunday morning panels.

I moderated a panel on SF’s broken technological promises, which was okay … but I’m not a very good moderator. The panel was entitled “Where’s My Flying Car?” and one of the panelists took that rather literally — he brought a nice PowerPoint slideshow about flying cars, which we all enjoyed, but we spent so much time on actual flying cars that we didn’t get to discuss some of the broader promises SF has made.

The highlight was seeing Hank Davis and Laura Haywood-Cory, both from the main office of Baen Books. (Laura got me on the guest list in the first place.) Hank was on the “Flying Car” panel, and as the most widely read of all of us he kept us firmly anchored in the genre. Laura did a great job moderating the very enjoyable panel on Southern Fandom.

This year’s Trinoc*coN was a small affair, a “relaxacon” as it’s known — more laid back and less programming-intense than usual — but very well done and I was pleased to be invited to be a part of it. Kudos and thanks to all the organizers and volunteers!

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Back from the beach, off to a con

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Just returned this afternoon, lightly sunburned and heavily fatigued, from a week in Myrtle Beach, and tomorrow I’ll head over to Trinoc*coN, a local SF&F convention. It’s a “relaxacon” this year, with minimal programming, but even so they got a big-name GOH in Catherine Asaro.

I’ll contribute the “minimal” to tomorrow’s programming: I’m on a panel on “The Paranormal in Fiction and Nonfiction” and I’ll moderate “Where’s My Flying Car?”, a panel on the failure of technology to live up to our more fantastic dreams.

For now, though, let’s see if we can add a few more words to the novel-in-progress. Best to any and all!

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No Speeches From the Anti-Candidate

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The Anti-Candidate didn’t make any speeches this week: not on foreign soil, nor in the U.S., not with foreign leaders, nor with regular folks here locally.

So remember when you’re thinking about voting: here at about 100 days before the election, the Anti-Candidate has not been monopolizing your news or making a spectacle of himself in any way. (Or at least in any way that you’ve seen.)

Happy Friday!

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Finally — 45,000

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I had such a good streak going of nearly 5,000 words a week, and then July hit and my writing time dropped to almost nil. First was the weekend in northern Virginia for the wedding, then a few nights of Vacation Bible School prep, then the weekend in Massanutten for the family reunion, and then this last week doing Vacation Bible School nearly every night and most of the day on Saturday.

At least I’m a few words closer to the goal for now. This being “vacation week” (so to speak, it’s a working vacation for me), it remains to be seen how much writing I’ll get done. But at least I’m still moving in the right direction.

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Living in a SF World: Cool NASA Video

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Saw this video this morning on Spaceflight Now, taken from 31 million miles away by the Deep Impact spacecraft, of the moon seen orbiting the earth. In the time-lapsed video, the earth rotates and the moon passes between the earth and the spacecraft.

Two versions are posted, a red-green-blue composite and a near-IR-green-blue composite — I think the near-IR version shows off the continents better. When we’re on our way to Mars, we can look back and see this and be amazed.

The Spaceflight Now story is here.

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Congrats, Sea Launch

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Going out on a Sea Launch mission was one of the highlights of my Air Force career — my e-mail updates to folks at the time were entitled, “Join the Air Force, go to sea” — so when I saw on Spaceflight Now that Sea Launch put up a new satellite for DISH Network, I thought congratulations were in order.

If only I’d had the blog going then. Just goes to show, timing is everything.

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Sixteen? Sweet

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Spent the weekend in at the Massanutten resort in Virginia for a family reunion to celebrate my dad’s 80th birthday — hadn’t seen a lot of those folks since the 70th birthday bash or before. It was a nice, though tiring time, and I was glad to get back to good old Cary.

And apparently other people feel the same way, because I saw today that Cary was ranked #16 on the list of the 100 best places to live in the U.S. according to Money magazine’s list of America’s best small cities.

Yeah, we like it. We’ll probably stay for a little while. 😉

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Are phone calls intellectual property?

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All the boo-hooing over the FISA reauthorization bill, on the part of the Huffington Posters and the BoingBoingers and the “left-right coalition” that I blogged about a while ago, got me thinking about the Fourth Amendment. The amendment states,

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Somewhere along the line the courts decided the amendment applies to telephone conversations, but I’m not sure I agree with that. Phone conversations certainly aren’t persons, or houses. Might they be considered papers or effects? I don’t think so, because papers and effects have an element of permanence that conversations lack. Electronic files, stored on computers or other media, seem practically preserved in stone compared to the ephemeral nature of phone calls — they would certainly fall under the broad category of “papers and effects,” as intellectual property. But phone calls? Maybe if they were recorded calls 😉 .

When the civil libertarians wrap telephone conversations into the Fourth Amendment, it seems to me they’re establishing an unreasonable expectation of privacy. Personally, I don’t say anything over a telephone that I wouldn’t say across a table in a restaurant — my expectation of privacy is very low, whether I’m using a land-line or a cell phone. To me, because the phone signal traverses the boundary of my home, talking on the phone is about equivalent to opening the window and having a conversation where any passerby can hear it.

Then again, I’m biased in favor of the dedicated professionals who work every day to protect us. I was one of them (not on the Intel side and only in my own small way), and I believe in what they do and appreciate their devotion to their duty. This new version of FISA helps them to protect us from the bad guys, and that’s all I care about.

It helps that I’m not plotting to blow up buildings or assassinate leaders or overthrow the government; I like our government just fine, thank you. I’m not real thrilled about the candidates running to lead it, but that’s another subject — and why I developed the Anti-Campaign, in case anyone was wondering 😀 .

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Nicest (and most frustrating) Rejection Ever

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If you ever wondered how close you can come without scoring in this game of darts called writing, the rejection e-mail I got yesterday should give you some idea. I’ve redacted the name of the editor and the magazine:

Dear Gray,

This is one of the moments in which I do not enjoy being an editor. After much consideration, _____ will not be using “She Walks Among Them at Night,” and you are free to submit it elsewhere.

As to why we did not accept “She Walks Among Them at Night,” I believe it just became a matter of preference with the limited spots we have. I normally give advice at this point concerning items that were issues for us during the consideration period, but I have nothing for this story. It is well written and engaging.

“She Walks Among Them at Night” was a fantastic read, and thank you for letting us spend so much time with it. I wish I had better news after the lengthy consideration, and I wish you the best of luck with this piece.

Sincerely,
_____
Submission Editor
_____

I think they felt bad for holding the story for over six months. Now, to find another venue where it might fit.

Who knew encouragement could be so frustrating?

___

UPDATE:

I was feeling pretty good until I popped in to the Codex Writers Group forum and saw that another member received the same rejection — with only the name of the story changed — a couple of days ago. Now it looks to me like a “standard” form rejection they crank out whenever they hold a story for a long time.

Frustrating, indeed.

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New Blog: NC State of Business

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Today I kicked off the “NC State of Business” blog for North Carolina State University’s Industrial Extension Service; as a staff writer and one of a handful of IES members acquainted with blogdom, I now “own” the blog.*

Thankfully, I’m not responsible for developing all the content on the blog. The Executive Director and several of the other key folks will make most of the blog entries — I’ll just moderate the thing and post my own occasional screeds.

Check it out here: NC State of Business.

___
*The power’s not going to my head. Really. 😎

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