Wendy McClure

Author and Professional Obsessive.

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Archives for December 2007

Heads up!

December 29, 2007 by Wendy

I’m doing a much-needed upgrade of WordPress and redesigning a little this weekend. Things might get uglier before they get prettier.

(Update): they’re almost pretty now.  A few things still need work and I’m still rearranging widgets.

Filed Under: meta

Merry Merry

December 22, 2007 by Wendy

Our tree

Ah ha! I have a few spare moments somehow! I’m sure everyone is off a-wassailing by now, but in case any of you are still around, I’ve stuffed this here blog stocking with some of my favorite Christmas stuff:

  • I cannot stop watching Winston the Santa cat run around in that suit. I cannot get that song out of my head, either. I mean, not that I mind. Thanks, Rich!
  • Chris found this 1981 new wave Christmas record in a vinyl bin somewhere a couple years ago, and since then we’ve kind of fallen in love with it. Everyone knows the Waitresses song rules, but so does this Christmas on Riverside Drive song and this song and this really sort of aweomely depressing Cristina song (be warned you might need to watch Winston again after listening to it).
  • Speaking of morose Christmas music, I still have that mumbly Marlene Dietrich version of “The Little Drummer Boy” up, if you’d like to listen to it and not steal it for yourself or anything.
  • Behold, some of my favorite Flickr Christmas photos I’ve taken over the years.

Anyway, enjoy. Feliz Navidad, chickens!

Filed Under: misc, personal

Xmas marks the spot

December 20, 2007 by Wendy

Lighty lights

This entry is a placeholder for the much better holiday entry that I may (or may not) get to write this evening or tomorrow or whenever I do (or do not) get a chance to write something before Christmas, on account of the fact that my dad and brother are visiting us, and then Chris and I are driving to Michigan for the holiday proper, and so I’ve been shopping and cleaning and decorating and cooking (for instance, I’m just about to make a pie) and wrapping (for instance, hey, did you know that it’s really hard to gift wrap a present with raffia without it turning out looking like something the Blair Witch made? well it is), and then also there’s been work and life and I had to hook up this new computer I got (should I install Leopard yet? Will Leopard maul me?) and anyway my December has been like one big cornflake-marshmallow cluster cookie wreath of delight, sweet but also sticky and demented, and I sure hope I can get back on here between now and the Big X Day and drink a smart eggnog with all of you wonderful people and discuss about how the Eurythmics cover of “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” bothers me and makes me oddly embarassed for the Eurythmics, and also wish you all a very Merry Christmas, but in case I don’t I’ll say it right now MERRY CHRISTMAS YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. Okay, now for the pie.

Filed Under: meta, personal

Recent impediments

December 6, 2007 by Wendy

to updating this site: 1.) NaNoWriMo. 2.) Thanksgiving travel. 3.) Sickness, in the form of a lame little cold which nonetheless turned me into a gloomy snuffling rheumy-eye’d Dickens character for days and days. But now the dense cloud of ennui and Kleenex is dispersing and letting some of the twinkly holiday stuff sparkle through, and I think I might even be myself again one day soon.

I did not win NaNoWriMo. I did not get to 50,000 words, as I pretty much expected I wouldn’t. I guess I could have done it if I’d followed the some of the proverbial NaNoWriMo advice, i.e., cancel all your social obligations; order nothing but carryout; shut yourself up in your room with your hands taped to the keyboard and a beer hat filled with Red Bull, and so on. But for me, the point was more that I wanted to see how many words I could write every night while still being sort of a normal person who cooks dinner and watches those old Twin Peaks* episodes with her boyfriend (who had never seen the good episodes). And I wrote more words under those circumstances than I thought possible. All the counting counting counting made me twitchy, though, since I was working with several different files at once, instead of a long rambling Word document that starts with It-was-a-dark-and-stormy-bibbety-blah, and at some point I needed a calculator, and then I felt like I was auditing my own soul, but in the end it was nice to have some measure of progress. And then I ate some turkey.

*Comments we made over the course of viewing both seasons throughout November include, “That’s not the last you’ll see of creamed corn.” “It’s not very hard to kill a Renault brother, is it?” and “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Leland!”

Anyway, it’s close to midnight, and I seem to be needing a lot more sleep than usual, what with the cold and snow and shopping and minor ailment and my newfound taste for hot toddies, so I hope you’ll understand my cutting this short. I’ll be back in a few days to blather about Christmas music or something.

Filed Under: General, personal

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The Wilder Life on Flickr

Recent Press and Links

  • Essay: A Little House Adulthood For the American Masters documentary on Laura Ingalls Wilder, I contributed a piece to the PBS website about revisiting the Little House books.
  • Essay: The Christmas Tape (At Longreads.com) How an old audio tape of holiday music became a record of family history, unspoken rituals, and grief.
  • Q & A With Wendy McClure Publishers Weekly interview about editing, Wanderville and more.

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Where else to find Wendy

  • Candyboots Home of the Weight Watcher recipe cards
  • Malcolm Jameson Site (in progress) about my great-grandfather, a Golden Age sci-fi writer.
  • That Side of the Family My semi-secret family history blog
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