Originally published at Diana Dru Botsford. You can comment here or there.

Fighting the flu?  Join the club.  There’s no better time to be reading than when you laid up, and if you’re writing, you better be reading!  Novelists should read novels (I have 6 I’m currently cycling through on my Kindle).  Poets should read poetry.  Short story writers should be reading short stories.  Of course.

Screenwriters?  One huge upside of the intertubes has been the accessibility to teleplays and screenplays.  Here’s a great list (with links) of the contending scripts for this year’s Academy Award Nominees.  Enjoy!

“Anonymous” by John Orloff (Sony)

“The Artist” by Michel Hazanavicius (The Weinstein Company)

“Beginners” by Mike Mills (Focus Features)

“Bridesmaids” by Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig (Universal)

“Cars 2″ by Ben Queen; Story by John Lasseter, Brad Lewis and Dan Fogelman (Disney)

“Coriolanus” by John Logan, from the play by William Shakespeare (The Weinstein Company)

“The Debt” by Matthew Vaughn & Jane Goldman and Peter Straughan (Focus Features)

“The Descendants” by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash, based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings (Fox Searchlight)

“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” by Steven Zaillian, based on the novel by Stieg Larsson (Sony)

“Hanna” by Seth Lochhead and David Farr; Story by Seth Lochhead (Focus Features)

“The Help” by Tate Taylor, based on the novel by Kathryn Stockett (Dreamworks)

“The Ides of March” by George Clooney & Grant Heslov and Beau Williman (Sony)

“The Iron Lady” by Abi Morgan (The Weinstein Company)

“Jane Eyre” by Moira Buffini, based on the novel by Charlotte Bronte (Focus Features)

“Machine Gun Preacher” by Jason Keller (Relativity Media)

“Margaret” by Kenneth Lonergan (Fox Searchlight)

“Margin Call” by J.C. Chandor (Rope of silicon website)

“Martha Marcy May Marlene” by Sean Durkin (Fox Searchlight)

“Moneyball” by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin; Story by Stan Chervin, based on the book by Michael Lewis (Sony)

“My Week With Marilyn” by Adrian Hodges, from the book by Colin Clark (The Weinstein Company)

“Pariah” by Dee Rees (Focus Features)

“Shame” by Steve McQueen and Abi Morgan (Fox Searchlight)

“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” by Bridget O’Cconnor & Peter Straughan, based on the novel by John le Carre (Focus Features)

“War Horse” by Lee Hall and Richard Curtis, based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo (Dreamworks)

“Warrior” by Gavin O’Connor and Anthony Tambakis & Cliff Dorfman (Lionsgate)

“Win Win” by Tom McCarthy; Story by Tom McCarthy & Joe Tiboni (Fox Searchlight)

Originally published at Diana Dru Botsford. You can comment here or there.

Updated!  May 26th:  Martin Wood no longer able to attend.  Cliff Simon will gate in for a Skype visit with fans!

It’s getting to be that time of year again – flying here and there and meeting extraordinary fans, insightful artists, thoughtful writers, and seeing all sorts of awesome costumes!  First up:

This will be my second year at TimeGate Atlanta — (May 27-29) and yep, it’s a hybrid Stargate/Doctor Who con and really, one of best run operations I’ve ever experienced.

In addition to some presentations of my own (more in a moment on that!), I’ll be teaming up with Gateworld‘s David Read to host a Skype video interview with Stargate actor Cliff Simon aka Baal. director/producer Martin Wood (who’s now Exec Producer and Director on Sanctuary). It’ll be interesting to get Cliff Simon’s Martin’s retrospective on the franchise as well as (hopefully) some fun behind-the-scenes tales from episodes such as Abyss and the Stargate Continuum DVD film.   Con attendees will get to ask questions as well.  (Sunday, 4pm, ET)

I’ve also been asked to share a presentation on my Antarctica expedition along with my research to determine where the Ancient Outpost would have really been situated (Not as easy as it sounds, but yes!  Thanks to many conversations with USAF folks, Polar Star expedition staff members and a great deal of reading, I’ve figured it.  But don’t worry, if you can’t make TimeGate, you can wait to read THE DRIFT.  (Saturday, 2pm).

I’ll also be sharing a panel with Stargate Atlantis writer Melissa Scott on writing for tie-in’s, particularly the Stargate Franchise. (Sunday, 1pm)

In the spirit of our visit with Martin Wood, and my presentation on Antarctica, David Read and I will do a video commentary on Stargate SG-1′s Lost City.   (Sunday, 3pm)

Last, but not least, I’ve invited Con attendees to join me in a writing workshop. (Saturday, 3pm)
Those attending need to bring a scene from a short story, novel or screenplay. You’ll want to bring a minimum of 5 copies so  it can be read aloud amongst workshop
attendees. Everyone will be involved in providing critiques in a constructive, supportive manner which will help the writer to improve their work because, afterall, writing is rewriting!

Hanging w/Princess @ TimeGate '10

So yeah – busy, busy, but fun!  If you’re in the area, hopefully you’ll visit because even if you’re not a Stargate or Who fan, how can you resist a visit with the con’s resident mascot, Princess.

Hope to see you there!

Originally published at Diana Dru Botsford. You can comment here or there.

The Drake Passage Outside My Cabin

Warning:  If you’re prone to seasickness, I don’t recommend watching the video below.

It’s months later and I’ve yet to get those last two days of my January trip uploaded.  My apologies, it’s been a bit nuts – made all the more so by a bout of pneumonia that lingered for almost 2 months and an excessively busy spring semester (which turned out some amazing scripts from student-writers).  Oh, and, let’s not forget the storms that knocked power out, practically ripped the roof off my hay barn, and…

My Stargate SG-1 novel which has had to suffer in the backseat while I dealt with the above insanities.

Happily, the insanity has quieted down (for the moment) and the novel progresses well.  Of course I rapidly switch back and forth between moments of exhilarated enthusiasm for this crazy book which feels more and more like a film than an episode (just close your eyes and pretend SG-1 got that third movie!) — and then there’s days where I think I must be the worst writer on the face of any planet in any galaxy.

Typical writer stuff.

So… those last two days of Antarctica goodies will have to wait for when I finish THE DRIFT.  Look for postings come late June.  In the meantime, however, here’s a bit of video for those of you who aren’t prone to seasickness.   This video was taken inside the library on the 3rd floor of The Polar Star while traveling back to South America.    While there’d been a pretty good case of rocking and rolling on the way down to Antarctica, it barely compared to what we experienced coming back.  According to the ship’s logs, we hit gale force 8 winds.  On the Beaufort modern scale, that equates to 39-47 mph, but there were definitely times we had to have peaked up at force 9 which is aptly described as “High waves whose crests sometimes roll over. Dense foam is blown along wind direction. Large amounts of airborne spray may begin to reduce visibility.”

Suffice it to say that the smell of vomit in the corridors was ripe.  Personally, I LOVED every minute, sneaking outside on several occasions even when we were ordered to stay in our cabins.

See for yourself:

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