My first published short story was “29 Union Leaders Can’t Be Wrong,” which appeared in Strange Horizons in June 2007. It was the first short story I had ever submitted for publication, and the first short story I had ever written outside of class assignments. I was totally stoked.

Then I didn’t sell anything for six months, which was frankly the best thing that could have happened to me, though it made it hard to answer my family whenever they asked, “Where can we see what you’re writing?”

Last night my sister asked me how writing was going, and I realized I had nice things to tell her. Like, a list that was more than one thing!

* “Synergy” will be coming out in the latest issue of Diet Soap.

* “A Garden in Bloom” will be appearing in Shimmer’s Clockwork Jungle Book.

* I have two stories forthcoming from Fantasy, “White Stone” and “Light on the Water.”

* “The Drink of Fine Gentlemen Everywhere” will be appearing in the latest issue of Sybil’s Garage.

* “Bespoke” was recently accepted by Strange Horizons.

* And a few days ago, my story “Carthago Delenda Est” was accepted into the Federations anthology, edited by John Joseph Adams.

I have decided to take the night off of writing and celebrate. By which I mean “sleep.”

So at Tor.com today I’m talking about the new Watchmen portraits and what these might mean in terms of the adaptation from page to screen. The answer is mostly, “It looks good! TOO GOOD. Also, Laurie, go put on some pants. What are you, nine?”

However, anyone who has read an X-Men comic knows that Laurie got off easy. You know whose costume really sucked? Casablanca-records-sponsored mutant Dazzler! Who I hate. Let me show you why!

That’s not even why. That’s just how the poor thing looks.

Disclaimer: I am not well-versed on this; in a conversation about comics, I’m out-comic’ed in about two minutes. All I know is what I read as a thirteen-year-old, instead of leaving my room ever. That was mostly X-Men.

But seriously, Dazzler sucks.

She had her own miniseries back in the day, inexplicably called “Beauty and the Beast,” where she flipped out because of the pressures of fame and couldn’t control her power and had to go to Heartbreak Hotel (actual name) and attempt some mutant rehab. Meanwhile, Beast is all, “How about we go to the State Fair on Tuesday? I have my dad’s car for the weekend,” and she’s all, “I can’t believe that you, who are ugly, have more control than I, the beautiful one!”

You can start reading the synopsis of the series here, but I got acid flashbacks and had to stop.

The thing I most remember is her talking to the young girl who lives/works there, and finds out her mutant power is that she can change the color of a flower. Seeing this, Dazzler thinks, and I quote, “Hmm…makes sense that nature would have scattered a few lesser powers among all us big-time mutants,” which is pretty big talk for a woman whose power is basically to channel garage bands into the Fiesta Texas nightly laser show.

She sucks, is what I’m saying.

And what I’m really saying is, it never hurts to have good-looking costumes in your movie, but I have a sneaking hope that even in awesome latex costumes, everyone is still as lame as they should be. Right, Dazzler? (Oh yeah, I went there.)

On Tor.com, I babble about how the Middleman DVDs are actually happening.

This makes today much cooler than, say, Monday, when the DVD promise did not yet exist. But if you give a mouse a cookie, she’s gonna want details on the special features.

My dream list of special features would be:

- Table readings for all the episodes. This isn’t as nuts as it sounds; from ABC Family’s own site, we know they filmed at least, what, five? I’m sure they shoved a camcorder in a corner most times.

- Episode commentaries with the principal actors – and without Javier Grillo-Marxuach. He can have separate commentaries, of course, but in my dream DVD sets the actors never have to compete with the director.

Best example ever: the LOTR commentaries. Peter Jackson and company talked about themes and planning and triumph and all sorts; the actors made fun of each other and talked shit about the dialect coaches.

- Screen tests!

- Behind the scenes filming. Waaaant.

- Storyboards or other information from the planned 13th episode.

- Bloopers. You know their bloopers are amazing.

- Things I know I am missing. What am I missing?

(YAY DVDs.)

So usually I’m a nerd or a bastard, but sometimes I’m just a huge sap. It happens. Like when I watch Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.

There is not even a pretense of objectivity here, you guys. This movie is amazing. It’s like the director woke up one morning and said, “I’m going to recruit a bunch of character actors from Awesome (Sorta-)British Actor Camp and slap them in ’30s England and let them all have happy endings. Every single one of them.”

This has not happened since Cold Comfort Farm. IT WAS ABOUT TIME.

Nutshell: Miss Pettigrew, an unemployed governess, accidentally becomes social secretary to American nightclub singer Delysia Lafosse. They hit the town with a bunch of adorable people, run around for a day putting on awesome dresses, and get happy endings. It is not Rashomon, is what I’m saying. It is awesome, is what I’m saying.

There could not be any more spoilers, or pictures, under this cut.

“Am I terribly old-fashioned?”
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So apparently there’s a new rage in costumes you can make for the whole family from a single pattern.

This is great news, if your family is a bunch of genies.

(Um, why does the 20-year-old have a modest tummy-covering sash and the 4- and 8-year-olds are having a midriff moment? Just asking.)

It’s even better news if your family wants to reenact March of the Penguins.

Let’s hope little Timmy survives the winter so he can be eaten by a seal later, escaping the oil slick that would otherwise claim his life!