El Dia de la Marmota

Here’s a large, fat marmot that came up onto the second-floor balcony the other day.  He remained in this pose, pensive or possibly praying, until someone came out of their room unexpectedly, at which point the marmot gave a piercing shriek and headed for the hills.  Apparently he lives under one of the buildings.

Taos Toolbox continues, and over the weekend we’ve had talks by Carrie Vaughn and by indiepub guru Emily Mah, both of which were received ecstatically.  (If I’m any judge of ecstasy, anyway.)

The first week’s literary critiques are in, and the second week’s haven’t arrived yet.  I offer the highlights of what we’ve seen so far:

“If this book had any more atmosphere, you could terraform Mars.”

“I like Thor being a dudebro and behaving like Drunk Hulk.”

“Ease me into the big pit of roiling evil.”

“More attention paid to martial arts training, because everyone loves a training montage.”

“Your characters are saying they need data, and so do I.”

“This is ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ on cocaine.”

“On the girly icky scale, this is an eleven.”

“I love the idea of a Fury having to leave anger management class in order to kill somebody.”

“This story is torture across all five senses.  And I thank you for that.”

“If she keeps canning her own body parts, she’s going to need bigger jars.”

“I don’t buy the fact that he’s depressed enough to commit suicide.  For one thing, he’s too easily distracted by boobs.”

“The last time I sneaked into an office building, I didn’t bring peanuts and a romance novel.”

“Who doesn’t love a werewolf in a miniskirt?”

“Don’t open with an interlude, because it’s not between anything.”

“Unless this is ‘My Dinner with Andre’ in space, I’d cut the long conversations.”

“I had a lot of shirt questions in relation to this.”

“You have white Belgium syndrome.”

“It was like an acid trip through Shakespeare’s brain.”

“Liz’s character seemed like Jane Bond.”

“It was neat to have a male character under a reproductive threat.”

And finally,

“It was dystopian, but without the fun parts.”