Here's an interesting "meme", borrowed from Rebecca's Live Journal, which, in turn, got it from other journals, ad infinitum. Simply type out the first and last lines of your most recent completed works, list them in order of completion, and laugh at lines taken out of context.
F. It had been beautiful, the day Peter's parents died.
L. They held on until they heard the people around them applauding.
F."The Mayor of Casterbridge has to be the most depressing book in all creation!"
L. She shrugged and returned to her book.
Letters in the Summer After the Fall of Voldemort (Harry Potter fanfic)
F. Harry, I'm in Muggle Heathrow, trying out the Muggle postal system
L. I'll see you in Hogsmeade! Love, Hermione.
The Butterfly Effect (Harry Potter fanfic)
F. Wesley took the stage.
L. Nobody was coherent for a while after that.
Future Shock (Harry Potter fanfic)
F. "Pencil!"
L. He stepped out of the room, leaving Harry to his own thoughts.
I'm sorry to report that Farrar, Straus & Giroux rejected Rosemary and Time. They had my manuscript for less than two months, meaning that they barely glanced at it. Ah, well, that's life in the publishing industry.
I'm not too upset. My submission with Groundwood Books (whose website is finally back up) is still in play, although I need to look for another publisher so I can keep two irons in the fire at all times...
The National Post. I don't usually read it, but today I'm in it. Liz Clayton wrote an article about transit enthusiasts and I spent last Tuesday posing for a picture to go with the article. Sure enough, there's my face, staring over a model streetcar, with a CLRV rollsign in the background. That took about an hour of posing and practise shots, but the photographer (Yvonne Berg) was a true professional. The article also gave good publicity to my Transit Toronto website, but neglected to mention Aaron Adel's roll in it.
I'm technically the co-owner of Transit Toronto. The website began as the Toronto Subway Page on Aaron Adel's webserver. The pages looked nice and had some interesting pictures, so I wrote to him and submitted some more. When he posted a brief history of the TTC, I wrote in and submitted more. Soon, this thing was out of control, containing over 200Mb of photographs, maps, route histories, etc, etc, etc. It's an appreciated resource on public transit in Toronto and I'm quite proud of it.
Aaron has since moved on to other things, including his deliciously offbeat Daily Nonsense, but he has kept an interest in Transit Toronto, and most recently gave me a lot of assistance (assistance? try, he ran the bloody show) in retrofitting the website for ColdFusion. He's inspired my online activities in a lot of ways, including the presence of this blog. Thanks again, Aaron! I couldn't have done this without you.