And Now A Word From...

New Address

2008-10-03T12:57:00.001-04:00

Apologies. This blog is no longer active. Posts have been moved to my main site todd-wheeler.com.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

-T

Makes Its Own Gravy

2008-06-06T09:08:00.002-04:00

"Eating your own dog food." The tech industry uses this phrase to mean one should actually use the software/hardware/wetware that one sells. For example, if everyone working at Microsoft used Mac's, that would be rather hypocritical.

I've been developing a client website using a content management system (CMS) called Drupal. It is cool stuff and I may use it for other clients. In which case, I'd better walk the talk and use it on my own website.

Which is now live. You can go visit the website here.

The Drupal tools make it much easier to update the site. It has a nice blog application which I'll be using. In other words, I won't be updating this blog anymore. All new posts will be on my website.

I know I'm making trouble, asking people change their links or bookmarks. Sorry! But hey, on the new site, the Summer Reading Program contest is now live. Perhaps that will help soften the blow.

As for all these old posts, not sure what to do with them. I'll probably recycle some if I get stuck for a topic to blog about. Maybe the old posts will slowly decompose into a nice rich humus of 1's and 0's.

Anyway, thanks for reading all the silliness posted here. I hope you'll make the trip over to the new site.

Fishy Business

2008-05-31T13:14:00.002-04:00

I mentioned I helped some fish move last weekend. Herring have been returning in greater numbers to spawn, particularly at the Upper Mystic Lake. A dam there makes it quite difficult to get from the Lower to Upper Mystic Lake.

The local paper reported efforts by an annual bucket brigade to lift the fish over the dam. Plans are under way to rebuild the dam with a herring ladder. For now a taxi service is necessary. Having read the article to my daughter, she got very excited about helping the fish and wanted to go out last weekend.

This first photo is one of the nets we were using to snag the herring.

There were quite a few people who showed up, in part due to the article in the newspaper.

Unfortunately, as one of the organizers mentioned in the article, predicting when the herring run to spawn is hit or miss. It's not like the fish have Memorial Day Weekend marked on their calendars to remind them to show up. Last year was a big hit with about 19,000 fish lifted. This year, not so much. My daughter and I did net one which made the trip worth while.

After our success, we gave way to others waiting for a turn with the nets. Here is a view from the dam.

Once the fish are caught, they are put in buckets of water. The buckets are hooked to lines and then hauled up by people on the dam who dump the fish into the Upper Mystic Lake on the other side of the dam. You can kind of see the lines hanging down here.

When we left, they had tallied all of 160 or so fish. A fun morning, despite the lack of herring.

Crash And Burn

2008-05-27T07:00:00.002-04:00

MyMoEdBo Daze:
Total Pages: 101

Many thanks for the support and comments. They helped keep me motivated.

I am pulling the plug on this experiment. I will continue editing the book (not giving up) but the daily editing goal isn't working. I'm running up against other projects that need more attention. No use putting anyone through more boring posts.

That said, it did work in that I got through 101 pages (a nice prime number), many more than I would have done without the public posting of progress.

Hope you all had a great weekend. Mine included time with family, scraping wallpaper, and helping some fish move. Photos later on the last item.

Bleh

2008-05-23T06:31:00.001-04:00

MyMoEdBo Day 18:
Zero pages. Can't get no worse.

Link of the Day:
Fantasy Friday. Blog for a beer, or something.

Not Ready For Prime

2008-05-22T09:28:00.002-04:00

MyMoEdBo Day 17:
10 pages. I know, I could have pushed a little harder to get to 11. It was a good stopping point.

Link of the Day:
Apollo Lunar Surface Journal

Luckier

2008-05-21T09:30:00.002-04:00

MyMoEdBo Day 16:
13 pages. From now on I will only edit pages in prime number groups.

Link of the Day:
Vintage Cartoons

Another Day

2008-05-20T09:28:00.001-04:00

MyMoEdBo Day 15:
5 pages. Wasn't there a Peanuts character named 5?

Link of the Day:
World Changing

No No!

2008-05-19T09:47:00.002-04:00

MyMoEdBo Days 13 & 14:
3 and 0 pages respectively. Weekends have been a drag.

After two weeks, 70 pages edited, which sounds great! But the goal is 10 pages a day, or 140 pages by now. To catch up, I'll need to average over 14 pages per day for the next 16 days. Enough math.

Link of the Day:
Double link since I missed a post.

Food Not Bombs
Punk Rock Hockey Mom

Yo Yo!

2008-05-17T07:07:00.002-04:00

MyMoEdBo Day 12:
5 pages. Up and down with the page count. Crazy. Diving in head first into the weekend.

Link of the Day:
I can't even remember why I bookmarked this. Besides the excellent writing of course. Articles in Fantasy Magazine by Tempest Bradford.

TGIF

2008-05-16T06:56:00.002-04:00

MyMoEdBo Day 11:
9 pages. Back on track.

Link of the Day:
About SF, one of those sites I always mean to read but never get around to. The lessons library looks interesting.

Golden Egg

2008-05-15T09:55:00.005-04:00

MyMoEdBo Day 10:
Golden goose egg. Which would be a zero. I feel like I should post an excuse of the day. This time it was the paying day job. On the plus side ...

Link of the Day:
... the new website for the day job client went live this morning. Isn't it shiny?

Pause

2008-05-14T06:36:00.002-04:00

MyMoEdBo Day 9:
Zero pages. Had a house guest so writing productivity was low.

Link of the Day:
My short story did not win the 2008 Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Award. Ah well. Didn't look like a fair fight for genre piece anyway.

Cheers

2008-05-13T05:58:00.001-04:00

MyMoEdBo Day 8:

11 pages.

Link of the Day:
Strange Stories From A Chinese Studio

Jeers

2008-05-12T09:16:00.002-04:00

MyMoEdBo Day 7:
Zero.

Twas a busy day. Total for week #1: 42 pages edited. Which would be 28 short of the goal. Have to play catch up this week.

Link of the Day:
SF Novelists blog.

Famished

2008-05-11T06:24:00.003-04:00

MyMoEdBo Day 6:

A mere 2 pages again. I still consider it a victory as the pages were done at 11pm.

A busy day which included seeing the new live-action Speed Racer movie. A review in the local paper compared the movie to eating a huge bag of your favorite candy. I guess it depends on your sugar tolerance; after the movie ended I wanted to sneak around the megaplex so I could watch it again. Thank goodness my daughter talked some sense into me.

Link of the Day:
The blog of Scott Westerfeld.

Lucky

2008-05-10T07:05:00.002-04:00

MyMoEdBo Day 5:

13 pages. On to the weekend.

Link of the Day:
Everything you ever wanted to know about Speed Racer.

Future Looks Bright

2008-05-09T07:18:00.002-04:00

MyMoEdBo Day 4:

6 pages. Half-day of school put a damper on things. Better day ahead.

Link of the Day:
Remnants of Skystone, scheduled for release in the fall, is a side-scrolling, steampunk, massive-multiplayer-online game. Very strange. One may keep tabs on the progress through its blog.

Feast Or Famine

2008-05-08T09:18:00.003-04:00

MyMoEdBo Day 3:

2. As in Two. Two very nice, solid pages. But II.

Catch up time.

Link of the Day:
Weirdness from Larry Niven. Via Daily Kos, which is more than slightly left. Grain of salt and all that.

On A Roll

2008-05-07T09:14:00.002-04:00

11 pages yesterday. Progress!

Link of the Day:
MLB's Beat The Streak Contest. Pick a baseball player who you think will get a hit. Do it successfully for 57 days straight and win $1 million. Simple.

Almost

2008-05-06T08:40:00.002-04:00

Only 8 pages yesterday. Better than zero.

Link Of The Day:
Jon Armstrong wrote the excellent book Grey. He has a podcast now called If You're Just Joining Us.

MyMoEdBo

2008-05-04T20:27:00.003-04:00

Last Book Read: Phil Gordon's Little Green Book by Phil Gordon

Bad writer. Bad.

Good wage earner, but bad writer. My promises of refocusing and kick-butt action have been hollow. I've got 20 bad karma days; one more and my Call of Chaucer rating will go into negative numbers. Time to fall back on what has worked in the past.

Daily, public accountability. My Month of Editing the Book (MyMoEdBo - catchy eh?) begins tomorrow. 30 days. 10 pages+ a day. Reported here on the blog, for better or worse.

I realize this won't be the most fascinating reading. I'll add in a link a day from my cluttered browser bookmarks and delete the link from the list, thus killing two birds with one blog.

Ready. Steady. Go.

Contract Bridge

2008-04-18T09:51:00.004-04:00

Last Book Read: Deduct It! by Attorney Stephen Fishman

I do not know a lot about contracts. I've been fortunate to have had most of my work published and, on rare occasion, compensated according to what the editor/publisher set forth in the contract or in their e-mail correspondence. Hell, I feel fortunate to have been published at all. There has been one bump in a road.

One story is still waiting on publication after a lengthy delay. The editor has recently pledged to resolve the problem. Just prior to that pledge, I went back to the contract and discovered I didn't have many options if the editor never published the story.

This reminded me of the Boskone panel on "How Not To Get Published". One panelists described a foolish thing many authors do, which is to not carefully read their contracts. Sitting at that panel I thought 'Oh, none of that applies to me.' I'm eating a nice plate of crow; would anyone else care for a slice?

Over at the SFWA site are sample contracts. I imagine there are all kinds of resources on the web. But my experience so far is that standard contracts are kind of like standard manuscript formats, everyone has their own idea of what 'standard' means.

There was a clause in the contract for my story on On The Premises which I thought very useful to me as a writer. I'm posting it below with the following ...

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A LAWYER NOR DO I PLAY ONE ON TELEVISION. ANYONE SO FOOLISH TO LOOK TO THIS BLOG FOR LEGAL COUNSEL ON CONTRACTS OR SANE AND RATIONAL ADVICE ON ANY TOPIC IS ON THEIR OWN WITH MY SYMPATHY.

"8(a). In the event that the Work is not published within 
six months of signing of this agreement, all rights revert to 
the Author, and the Author has the right to sell or arrange 
for publication of the above-named Work in any manner. The 
Author shall keep any payments made by the Publisher to 
him/her."

I like best the part about keeping the money.

Now, regarding the bump in the road referenced above, a new contract was issued. I added a modified version of the above text to the new contract and was glad that the editor agreed to it. I will do the same for future contracts that lack such a provision.

I'd be interested in hearing any of your experiences, good, bad or indifferent, regarding contracts. I've got a lot to learn.

Rockin' Robin

2008-04-04T06:42:00.003-04:00

Last Book Read: Cosmos Latinos, Andrea M. Bell and Yolanda Molina-Gavilán, editors

The robins are here along with spring. All is right with the world.

March Wrapup
Actually, let's just stipulate that March was less than stellar. April is a back to basics, no fooling, straight edge, brass tacks month.

Fiction
Not mine. Rhonda S. Garcia is an acquaintance through the OWW SFF site. Her story, Douen Mother appeared in Abyss & Apex a few years ago. But, still a good read if you haven't seen it.

In the current issue of Farrago's Wainscot is the very amusing She Has A Nice Personality by E.C. Myers.

Also in that issue is Flowertongue, an excellent tale of Victorian orchid hunters, by Jessica Reisman.

Finally, if you happen to be in Boston on April 12, stop by Pandemonium Books at 2 pm. You will find some of the authors of Desolate Places on hand to autograph and discuss the anthology.

Ciencia Ficción

2008-03-21T07:09:00.004-04:00

Last Book Read: Redwall by Brian Jacques

Caution: Long, rambling, link-o-rific post ahead.

Speculative fiction from the U.S. and Canada dominates the world market. At the Boskone conference last February, the discussion about regional SF also focused on those two countries. I decided to make my personal theme of that weekend a search for speculative fiction in the broader world.

It began with the after hours party promoting the Worldcon bid for Australia in 2010. I asked a few folks there about prominent Aussie SF writers. Greg Egan had the top spot, followed by Damien Broderick.

Beyond that, it was acknowledged it is tough to break into the international, let alone the North American, markets. Neither writer, I was told, used particularly Australian settings or themes.

I thought a different tack was in order, perhaps non-English language SF. An agent I spoke with at Boskone, Eleanor Wood, said she always got an earful at the Frankfurt Book Fair where international publishing rights are negotiated. The flow of fiction was too much a one-way street from the U.S./Canada/UK outward.

Wood suggested reading The SFWA European Hall of Fame, a collection of sixteen stories from various European writers, translated to English. I purchased it but haven't started reading yet; it looks very good.

I attended another Worldcon party, this time for next year's Anticipation in Montreal. I asked the host, René Walling, about French language SF. I wish my memory was better. He mentioned a long list of names, starting with Jules Verne and the famous silent movie Le Voyage dans la Lune, and leading up to the present with one of the guests of honor at Anticipation, Elisabeth Vonarburg.

Some of Vonarburg's books, I was told, have been translated into English. By now I was getting an urge to read untranslated SF. French, unfortunately, is out of the question. Spanish, on the other hand, I could muddle through. I certainly studied it long enough, though I must admit having rarely put it into practice.

Yet again at Boskone, I talked with writer Gregory Feeley about Spanish language SF. He recommended an anthology of translated works, Cosmos Latinos, about which he had written a review for the Washington Post.

Cosmos Latinos was a great starting point. It spans over 100 years and features writers from Mexico, Spain, Cuba, Chile, Brazil, El Salvador, Argentina, Venezuela, and Peru. The early works are typical of the late 19th century. The last few selections touch on recent trends like cyberpunk and urban fantasy. And in between is some great fiction.

I'm almost finished with the anthology and there is a definite theme that runs through many of stories. If you guessed politics and war, you'd be right. Unavoidable given the bloody history of many Central and South American countries, and also the civil wars in Mexico and Spain.

Perhaps this has more to do with the selection of these particular stories by the editors than a predominant trend in Spanish language SF. Regardless, this anthology is very much regional SF with stories set in the home countries of the writers, and full of local history, events, and literature. Thank goodness for the footnotes otherwise I would have missed many of the references.

This got me hooked. I started looking for online fiction. I've been helped along by Gustavo Bondoni. He pointed out Cuasar and Axxón, the latter of which he described as "the mother lode".

If neither Spanish nor French is your bag, Douglas Smith's Foreign Market List might have something in one's foreign language of choice. As for me, I'm dusting off my trusty Spanish/English dictionary, though I have a feeling I'll need more help. This new site, My Happy Planet might do.

New Story

2008-03-14T10:25:00.002-04:00

Last Book Read: Mongo by Ted Botha

At the online fiction magazine On The Premises you can read my short story "Nice Shade of Blue".

The story had an interesting journey to publication. It is mainstream fiction, not a speculative note in it. I wrote it almost two years ago and sent it off to a few literary magazines that took forever and a day to reject it.

I put the story aside, thinking it was done, wanting to focus on other things. On The Premises (OTP) has contests three times a year, each with a theme. The most recent theme fit my story so well, I figured what the heck, send it in.

The point I guess is never give up. Just a matter of finding the right editor at the right publication at the right time.

A little more information about OTP. They print all genres. The contests have very, very nice cash prizes. And the folks there are great to work with.

When I submitted my story I was a little wary. As I said, the cash prizes are great, up to $140 for first place. The website has no advertising. The stories are free, no subscription required. There are no fees for contest entries. Made me wonder where the money was coming from.

So I asked. The publisher and co-editor, Tarl Roger Kudrick, said it was a labor of love at the moment. The funding model might change in the future, but for now they're just trying to gain an audience as well as experience in publishing and editing.

I hope I'm not telling tales out of school by relating that. There are a lot of sketchy webzines out there. My intent is only to give props to a fiction site that deserves the credit and publicity.

New Toy

2008-03-07T09:50:00.003-05:00

Before I get to the topic of the day, I'll mention author L.A. Mitchell who stops by here on occasion.

Her short story, "The Lost Highway" appears in the romance anthology Love Texas Style, published by The Wild Rose Press.

Check out the book, her website, and her Lost Month of Giveaways contest.

In other news, I recently purchased a device I have not seen or used in a long, long time. It looks like this:

Weird looking, huh? It gets better. In order to use it, you have to put things on it, things that look like this:

I know, crazy! And what's amazing is when you turn the device on, it plays music. I'm not kidding!

What kind of music? Well, I'm not talking about toe tapping tunes.

I'm not talking about a funky groove.

I'm talking about music that makes me want to move.

Bunch 'O Stuff

2008-03-01T05:34:00.003-05:00

Last Book Read: The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky

Contest
Congrats to Ken for winning the winter 2008 contest! And thanks to everyone who participated.

Goals
In February, I did have fun at Boskone. Didn't come close to completing a second draft of my book, but then that was an insanely ambitious target.

I did read through the first, crappy draft and made notes about how terrible it was. So for March:
~ Complete half of second draft of novel.

Everything else will be gravy.

Fun
I must have been in a strange mood because I laughed out loud for a full five minutes at the link below, tears and everything. Now it seems ... well, I won't spoil it. Garfield minus Garfield.

More fun is La Blogotheque. The videos feature musicians/bands performing impromptu while wandering streets, apartment buildings, subways, etc.

A word of warning, the main page of videos is huge, potentially browser crippling. Also, I couldn't get the video of The Ex (perhaps the best of the bunch IMHO) to play in Firefox; had to switch to IE. Extra points to the drummer of Malajube for creative use of the streetscape.

Boskone 45 Review

2008-02-22T06:43:00.002-05:00

Last Book Read: Moneymaker by Chris Moneymaker and Daniel Paisner

Reminder: The winter contest ends in one week. Get your social network going to increase your chances.

At Boskone this year, fewer panels jumped out at me as 'must see'. This had less to do with the quality of the panels than my growing familiarity of who various authors are and with the topics being discussed. Here are notes on the more interesting panels I attended.

Regional SF, Fantasy, and Horror
- F. Brett Cox, Daniel P. Dern, Glenn Grant, Elise Matthesen, Faye Ringel

Examples of regionalism in history were cited, for example H.P. Lovecraft, Mark Twain, L. Frank Baum. For contemporary history, several 'movements' were cited: a growing corps of Canadian writers, a group emerging from Minneapolis in the 1980's.

Overall, it was agreed that there wasn't much regional flavor currently, besides regional phrases and spellings. Nothing to point to and say "Ah, that shows the UK style, or that's the difference between American and Canadian fiction, eh?"

And then began jokes about Canadians.

Hidden Biases in SF
- Tobias Buckell, Gregory Feeley, Gregory Frost, Daniel Kimmel, Pamela Sargent

Discussion focused more on historical biases. There was agreement that things are better, more could be done. Overall, I had higher hopes for the panel to get into contemporary issues more than they did. Below are some interesting points, not quite quotes, and apologies if I got anything wrong.

Sargent on writing from something other than your own perspective: Absorb enough about the culture to write honestly about it.

Buckell on exploring different cultures in SF: One resource is the Carl Brandon Society, which has on its blog some recommended reading. He also stressed that reading SF should be fun. If any particular author doesn't float your boat, there are many others out there.

He also mentioned the two anthologies edited by Nalo Hopkinson, Whispers From the Cotton Tree Root in which all the authors are of Caribbean descent, and Mojo: Conjure Stories which has Caribbean themes by authors of all different flavors.

Drug Discovery: Where Will the Medicines of the Twenty-Teens Come From?
- Matthew Jarpe

Jarpe is an expert, working in the field here in Massachusetts. He gave a very interesting presentation that cleared up misconceptions I had about the drug industry. For example, the average time to market for a new drug is 7 - 15 years at a cost of $800 million.

He also mentioned this website: http://clinicaltrials.gov/
Caution: website could trigger a long period of time wasting research.

Do Sweat the Small Stuff: Writing Short Fiction
- James Patrick Kelly, Kelly Link, Jennifer Pelland

Many anecdotes about process and individual stories. What works for one story may not work for another (e.g. workshopping/critiques). Common theme of "smashing ideas together and letting the sparks fly".

And JPK gave away cool swag.

Making Language Fit the Culture
- James Cambias, Elaine Isaak, Fred Lerner, Lawrence M. Schoen, Sonya Taaffe

Much of the academic discussion went right over my head. The kind of stuff that makes me wonder how I even know how to use the english language. I did emerge from that room with the longest list of suggested reading.

Jack Vance - The Languages of Pao
Carl Sagan - Contact
Ursula K. Le Guin - Earthsea Trilogy
Ruth Nesvolt - Looking Through Lace
Mary Doria Russell - The Sparrow
John Myers Myers - Silverlock
Burgess - A Mouthful of Air

The YA Novel
- Bruce Coville, Sarah Beth Durst, Stephen C. Fisher, Tamora Pierce, Jane Yolen

Listing this one as it was the most entertaining of the weekend, although mostly due to the antics of Coville and Pierce. The other panelists looked like they might separate the two and send them to opposite corners.

How Not to Get Published
- Ginjer Buchanan, Daniel P. Dern, Paul Melko, Eleanor Wood

How not to get published? Three words: People are stupid.
[Edit: The wording here was bugging me all day. That's what I get for blogging on only one cup of coffee.

To clarify, the panel covered not-smart actions: sending a memoir to an editor that only handles SF; pitching an agent at inappropriate times or places; sending queries that make the recipients consider restraining orders.]

A Novel Story

2008-02-17T22:19:00.003-05:00

Last Book Read: The Singer's Crown by Elaine Isaak

Back from Boskone. A different experience from last year, but still enjoyable. More notes later. I must fulfill an obligation first.

Background: Nathan had a contest on his novel blog. Having won, I could choose a book from his shelf. I asked for a David Weber novel since he was the guest of honor at Boskone this year and I hadn't read any Weber. Nathan sent me On Basilisk Station, the first of the "Honor Harrington" series.

Nathan also requested some con photos. Here is the adventure of the book.

It arrived at the hotel, full of excitement. It was going to meet the man, it's creator!

As the sun set gently in the west past the skyscrapers of Boston, the book whispered to itself: "Soon. Soon."

The following morning, it happened! The man himself took hold of the book firmly, peeled back its cover. He revealing the untouched title page, and inked his signature quickly. He then pushed the book aside, moving on to a steady stream of other books.

The book was proud, but confused. It wasn't unique, it knew. Wasn't even a hardcover, but still, so quick. The man's touch never lingered. The book decided to celebrate anyway, diving into the hotel room's "Honor Bar".

As you can imagine, the book went a little overboard. And as happens with overindulgence, there are consequences.

The book went to bed, a cold cloth at it's head, abashed. Perhaps it wasn't special to the man, just another paperback copy, but his signature would always be special to it.

Thanks again for the book, Nathan!

Boskone 45 Pre-Flight

2008-02-11T07:12:00.002-05:00

It would be nice if the Boskone website posted the program more than 6 5 days before the event. It would also be nice if the participants names were linked to their websites and blogs.

You know, on the off chance anyone going to the convention might be interested in reading a bit about the people they are paying to listen to, talk with, and be around? Crazy talk, I guess.

So, for my benefit, and anyone else interested, the program participants of Boskone 45 are linked below. Apologies to anyone I couldn't identify via Google.

Writers
Judith Berman
Beth Bernobich
Patricia Bray
Tobias Buckell
Michael A. Burstein
S.C. Butler
James Cambias
Jeffrey A. Carver
Bruce Coville
F. Brett Cox
Don D'Ammassa
Daniel P. Dern
Bob Devney
Vince Docherty
John R. Douglas
Debra Doyle
Jennifer Dunne
Sarah Beth Durst
Tom Easton
John Farrell
Gregory Feeley
Stephen C. Fisher
Michael F. Flynn
Esther Friesner
Gregory Frost
Craig Shaw Gardner
Greer Gilman
Laura Anne Gilman
Gavin Grant
David G. Grubbs
Jeff Hecht
Walter H. Hunt
Aron K. Insinga
Elaine Isaak
Alexander Jablokov
Matthew Jarpe
MaryAnn Johanson
Robert I. Katz
James Patrick Kelly
Joseph Kesselman
Daniel Kimmel
Rosemary Kirstein
Robert Kuhn
John Langan
Sharon Lee
Fred Lerner
Shariann Lewitt
Timothy Liebe
Kelly Link
James D. Macdonald
Darlene Marshall
Susan Martin
Elise Matthesen
Gary D. McGath
Paul Melko
Steve Miller
Mark Millman
Mark L. Olson
Priscilla Olson
Joshua Palmatier
Paul Park
Jennifer Pelland
Tamora Pierce
Steven Popkes
Faye Ringel
Pamela Sargent
Lawrence M. Schoen
Karl Schroeder
Joe Siclari
Wen Spencer
Allen M. Steele
Edie Stern
Charles Stross
Michael Swanwick
Sonya Taaffe
Cecila Tan
Amy Thomson
Paul G. Tremblay
Howard Waldrop
Lawrence Watt-Evans
David Weber
Peter Weston
Christopher Weuve
Trish Wilson
Jane Yolen
George Zebrowski

Agents
Eleanor Wood

Editors
Ellen Asher (SFBC ret.)
Ginjer Buchanan (ACE)
John R. Douglas (E-Reads)
David G. Hartwell (TOR)
Patrick Nielsen Hayden (TOR)
Teresa Nielsen Hayden (TOR)
Kathryn Kramer
Ernest Lilley (SFRevu)
Beth Meacham (TOR)
Farah Mendlesohn
Rome Quezada (SFBC)

Artists
Ctein
Bob Eggleton
Dean Morrissey
Omar Rayyan

Musicians
Gary Ehrlich
Merav Hoffman
Jordin T. Kare
Mary Kay Kare
Ellen Kranzer
Seanan McGuire
Benjamin Newman
Roberta Rogow
Bob Rosenfeld
Edward L. Stauff
Mary Ellen Wessels
Batya Wittenberg

Scientists
Guy Consolmagno
Chad Orzel
Eric M. Van

Quittin' Time

2008-02-08T06:24:00.000-05:00

Last Book Read: Positively Fifth Street by James McManus

Before I get into that subject line ...

Contest!

No, not mine. This one is courtesy of Edward Willett, SF writer, Non-F writer, and prodigious blogger. He's giving away copies of his new book, Marseguro, the first two chapters of which are on his website. Sign up by making a comment with your e-mail address on his blog post, or just send him a message.

And if you haven't entered my contest, what are you waiting for?

Now then, about quitting. Last December I covered the four jobs I had, two of which paid actual money. Life was getting out of balance, Koyaanisqatsi^*. Something had to give. So, last month I gave notice to the night job.

I know. You're not supposed to give up paying work in order to write more, especially if writing isn't paying much, or anything. I'm fortunate the financial risk wasn't great. I wasn't supporting the household by stocking shelves. The job was disruptive and the rationale in leaving it was to better focus on writing.

I had this big post in mind about what I was willing or not willing to sacrifice in order to write. Blah, blah, blah. If you're reading this, and a writer, you've heard all that before. You know the point. This gig takes time. We need to make choices in order to make progress.

Enough said.

^*The film by that name is wonderful, and ironically very peaceful. I have fallen asleep watching it at least a half-dozen times.

And Now A Word From ...

2008-02-03T09:41:00.000-05:00

I try to stay on writerly topics here, but was struck this morning by the video below, via Daily Kos.

This guy is so going to be President of the United States.

January Wrap Up

2008-02-01T10:04:00.000-05:00

Last Book Read: Spook Country by William Gibson

Lightning round list of stuff accomplished last month.

Contests
~ Submitted a story to On The Premises.

~ Signed up with the Online Writing Workshop to participate in the crit contest sponsored by Joshua Palmatier. Thank you, Steve, for posting the link to the latter.

Review!
Sporty Spec has been reviewed at The Fix. Very happy, not only for myself, but all the other authors in the book that I've met.

Hack!
Managed to level up in my writer role-playing game (stats in the sidebar).

January Goals
~ Did manage to register for three cons. The doing was not as difficult as the deciding and the committing.

~ Finished writing a book, Garbageland

Yes, the last one deserves a stand back, nod with silly self-satisfied grin kind of moment.

. . .

. . .

. . .

Okay, moment is over.

February Goals
~ Complete second draft of the book.
~ Have fun at Boskone.

Reading Fundamentals

2008-01-25T23:40:00.000-05:00

Last Book Read: Dawn by Octavia Butler

Another long post with the addition of a hastily and poorly built soap box.

Last November the National Endowment for the Arts released a report on reading and literacy in America. It made many splashy headlines. I decided it was important that I read the actual report rather than rely on the reporters.

I urge you (yes, you) to read it for yourself. Click here to open the (very large) PDF document.

There are a lot of statistics and graphs and charts. Bottom line: In America, we don't read so good. Or often. And it's getting worse.

The report doesn't blame any single cause (*cough*TV*cough*), showing how our leisure time, especially today, has many demands (*cough,cough*TV*cough,cough*).

It does have very interesting data on the impact of reading on all test scores, the economic benefits of reading competence by way of wages, and the involvement of frequent readers in volunteer, arts, and civic organizations and activities. The conclusion: Reading frequently is very important.

I think you all knew that.

There is one trend that I found fascinating. The report uses data covering about 18 years. The percentage of 9-year-old children who read almost every day for fun has been incredibly consistent over that time period, about 54%.

At age 13, that percentage has just as consistently dropped to around 30%. It drops again at 17, where the decline has been a bit steeper of late.

But regardless of the alternative entertainment media available, regardless of political flavors in office or reforms made in schools, east coast-west coast-and in between, regardless of everything, over the past 20+ years, lots of kids between age 9 and 13 significantly reduce the amount of reading they do for fun.

Just as the report doesn't try to pin blame (*cough*cough*cough*), it also doesn't propose any solution. Seems to me, when you get out of the habit of doing something, it's hard to get back into it. If 9-13 year olds are getting out of the habit of reading frequently for enjoyment, THOSE ARE THE KIDS WE SHOULD FOCUS ON.

In my humble opinion.

I'll be the first to step up and say 'mea culpa'. Once my daughter learned to read, I got out of the habit of reading to her. We go to the library every week. She gets piles of books and loves to read. If she can do it herself, mission accomplished, right?

Looks like, not.

Think globally, act locally. I've got a couple years before my daughter enters that 9-13 danger zone. Time to regularly read together again.

I'll also mention the 826 National organization, whose chapters are devoted to tutoring 6-18 year olds in "expository and creative writing." Writing and reading go hand in hand.

The Boston chapter currently has a book drive. Next week I'll be swinging by to make a donation.

If you have the means via books or treasure, consider donating to a local library, school, or other non-profit geared toward getting and keeping kids reading.

And if you have access to a 9-13 year-old, WITH THEIR PARENTS' PERMISSION, sit them down and read a book with them. They may not like it, and they sure as hell won't thank you, but they will be better for it.

We all will.

Bits and Pieces

2008-01-18T10:05:00.000-05:00

Contest

A new contest is up to help get through the winter. Click on the contest link to see the details.

Lecture Archive

Found via Wired magazine, the UC Berkeley lecture archive. Lots of fun stuff there to waste time listen to.

Inspiration

Finally, in honor of the upcoming holiday, a video via YouTube. Have a great weekend.

Writer RPG

2008-01-11T23:06:00.000-05:00

Last Book Read: Powder and Patch by Georgette Heyer

WARNING: Really long, geeky post!

I enjoy playing all kinds of games: card games, board games, video games, MMORPGs. Writing requires choices and I have sacrificed time spent on games.^* Which is too bad because they're fun.

Any type of work should have the potential for fun as well. Aspects of writing can be enjoyable, but also frustrating, heartbreaking, and misery inducing. Last December I wondered how I could make writing more fun like a game.

Why not a Writer Role Playing Game?

Any decent RPG needs levels for the players to climb, with appropriate titles and point ranges of course.


Level 1 - Dilettante     (0 - 999)
Level 2 - Hack           (1,000 - 4,999)
Level 3 - Neo-Pro        (5,000 - 9,999)
Level 4 - Pro            (10,000 - 24,999)
Level 5 - Serious Artist (25,000 - 49,999)
Level 6 - Literary Giant (50,000 - 99,999)
Level 7 - Writer         (100,000+)

How do I earn points? Various writing related activities. I took inspiration from the six points in J.A. Konrath's Get Off Your Ass and Do Something.


Word Count           +5 points per 100 words.

Submissions          +10 pts/submission

Published Stories    +5 pts/100 words.

Editing, 
Blog/Web Updates, 
Event Attendance     +5 pts/each instance

Online Participation,
Business Activities, 
Research             +1 pt/each instance

So while all kinds of activity can earn points, words on the page will really drive the leveling.

In addition, there is credit for random acts of kindness and generosity, such as making a cash donation to a library, buying a debut novel, subscribing to a fiction magazine, and so on. 1 pt/each instance.

Of course, as the game giveth, it taketh away. If I don't do anything for my writing career in a given day, that is a Bad Karma day for which negative points are awarded.

Now, we all know some days are better than others. We have to make some allowances for illness, vacation, holidays, etc. There is a sliding scale depending on the number of Bad Karma days. However, go over the threshold and all the days are assessed the higher penalty.


Days 1 - 10:      -1 points per day.
Days 1 - 20:     -10 points per day.
Days 1 - 30:    -100 points per day.
Days 1 - 31+: -1,000 points per day.

Four weeks of vacation (20 business days) won't cause much guilt. Another two weeks, the pain starts. And if I go over a month of Sundays, we're talking serious trouble.

Sounds rather complicated, doesn't it? I already track most of the raw data in Excel. I added a couple worksheets, coded a macro to add things up, and had me an automated RPG tally sheet.

At the moment I'm at Level 1 - Dilettante. At least there is no Bad Karma so far. Maybe I can find a magic +4 keyboard to boost my statistics.

^*The one exception is playing games with my daughter, who is very competitive and, ahem, kicks my butt on a regular basis.

Everybody Wants To Be A Cat

2008-01-04T06:23:00.000-05:00

Last Book Read: Mort by Terry Pratchett

To continue on the question, 'what is the point', this is it for me:
To earn a living as a fiction writer.

Yes, that is the dream, to be the Top Cat. Many writers, with many books in print, never achieve that. To get there, I need to make significant progress each year.

This year cannot be just more of the same as 2007, more stories published for token fees or no pay. For example, having a professionally published story would be significant progress, or earning more than I spend on this career, or getting an agent interested in a novel. Without significant progress, this remains a hobby.

No one wants to be a dilettante.

Goals for January:

~ Finish first draft of Garbageland.

~ Register for three conventions: Boskone, Readercon, and Capclave.

Yeah, everybody wants to be a cat, because a cat's the only cat who knows where it's at.

Yer End

2007-12-28T07:42:00.000-05:00

Last Book Read: Dune by Frank Herbert

This month has delivered an abundance of introspection, analysis, and navel gazing. More than the usual calendrical summation, I've pondered the greater effort of writing these past couple years. As someone said to me in an e-mail: "What's the point of all this?"

In terms of goals, I've done well for the last quarter. The disappointments were not getting an earlier novel, Chasing Midnight into a marketable length, and not getting the new novel done during NaNoWriMo. But, I kept short stories in submission, and organized a great book launch. Really, nothing to be disappointed about.

The whole year has been good to me: writing friends found, stories published, and time to write. Nothing to complain about.

So, to get off the maudlin roller coaster, some cold, hard facts about the writing effort. Over the past 18 months, for all the goals set, I have a 50% success ratio. Not bad, but doesn't say much for my planning abilities.

For 2007, I tracked the amount of time I spent in writing related activities. I didn't capture each and every moment, but figure I missed recording every category at about the same rate. Total hours tracked climbed up over 400.

I was surprised that blogging came to only 8% of the whole. Enlightening was the fact that editing made up 33% while writing, new words on the page, was 23%. I'd like to flip that one in the future.

And writing/editing only comprised 56% of total effort. Maybe this is okay given the other activities (event planning, research, etc.) but it seems short. And given the 8,760 hours available in a year, spending just a hair over 4% of all my time on writing seems inadequate.

Especially given how little sleep I get.

Blogging is an easy target for redress. I've spent almost an hour on this post alone (and given the length, I'm sure you feel the same). Going back through all the posts, I discovered that four people who have made comments over the year plus have gone on hiatus or given up on their own blogs. And noteworthy for a blog on writing, the two posts that have gotten the most comments were about soccer and cartoons. So, what's the point of this?

It's fun. So blogging stays, maybe back to once a week. As for additional goals for the new year, I'm still thinking.

Holiday Jeer

2007-12-18T06:22:00.000-05:00

I have come across two MySpace pages that don't look like the internet threw up in my browser.

The first one is the Liars' League, a non-paying online zine with a twist. Each month features a theme for which stories are solicited. If selected, the story is posted in the blog and read before a live audience by an actor.

The theme for December is 'Santa and Satan'. I seem to have hit a groove with twisted holiday stories. Last year I had a couple accepted, and now "Sour Notes" has been performed by the Liars' League.

[EDIT: The full text is up, click here to read it. ]
The full text story is not up yet. The brilliant performance by actor Steven Wedd can be heard at Liars' League Listen. If that link goes away later, the mp3 file can also be downloaded from my website.

The second MySpace page I like is by a group called The Slighted out in Los Angeles. I could be biased on that one since my sister plays drums for the band.

Best wishes for the holidays and a wonderful new year!

Follow The Leader

2007-12-15T08:05:00.000-05:00

Last Book Read: American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Getting in the conga-meme line behind fellow writer Steve Buchheit to post my weekday schedule. Why? I'm still working on that one.

6:00am ~ Alarm clock goes off in the form of a cat walking on my head. Attempts to reprogram this alarm clock over the years have failed.

6 - 7:30am ~ Drink coffee, check e-mail, pay obeisance to the To-Do list, and generally try to get into a positive frame of mind to greet the day.

7:30 - 9:30am ~ Clock in on JOB #1, stay-at-home parent. Get the other household members up and moving and ready for their respective days. Pack their lunches and send them off into that cold, cold world. Really, it's 21 degrees outside as I write this.

9:30 - 12ish ~ JOB #2, writer, gets a chance. Writing, editing, blogging, event planning, researching, and more writing.

12ish - 3:00pm ~ Things get tricky as demands pile up. Various household chores for JOB #1 come into play. JOB #3, web consultant, is starting to require more time. I try to keep focused on JOB #2 but discipline wavers at this point.

3:00 - 8:00pm ~ JOB #1 all the way, some tasks varying depending on the day (groceries, library, bill paying, etc.) with dinner prep taking an hour plus (what can I say, I work slow).

8:00pm - 1:00am ~ Spend three nights a week at JOB #4, arranging foodstuffs on shelves so that customers can mess it all up the following day (I try to have a Zen mindset, doing the work well for the sake of doing it well, otherwise I feel like Sisyphus). The other four nights JOB #3 gets some attention, but I also try to relax, spend time with family, catch up with the internet.

That is, for the most part, the weekday schedule. Weekends, all bets are off. Writing time is pretty limited. Other To-Do lists come into play.

Again, why post this? Part of it is rationalization, as if to say "Hey, I'm damn busy here!"

It does help me to analyze how I spend my time. I'm very, very, very fortunate to have that 9:30 - 3:00 block. With a bit more discipline, JOB #2 could get more attention. Publishing this publicly will keep me aware of how lucky I am and maybe keep me more focused.

The trick is making JOB #2 a better paying gig.

Nostalgia For Sale

2007-12-09T07:11:00.000-05:00

Last Book Read: Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon

I am of a generation which grew up watching a lot of television. As early as elementary school I can remember connecting with other kids based on the shows we watched in common. Water bubbler talk, if you will.

Many of the shows had a SF/F bent, and I have a fond, if vague recollection of them. It doesn't surprise me how well Hollywood has exploited this nostalgia, pushing emotional buttons to extract cash for a chance to re-live those days, if only in the form of bad movies.

However, I can't think of any cartoon that has been successfully revived. The ones that come to mind, Flintstones, Scooby Doo, Inspector Gadget, Rocky and Bullwinkle, just looked horrible. At least in the trailers. I haven't seen any of those movies. What do you think? Have I missed a good one? Any cartoons you'd love, or dread, to see on the big screen?

Perhaps part of the problem is the transition to live action. I don't know why someone doesn't just make a new feature length animation. I guess it doesn't work that way.

The first one to even spark an interest in me was Underdog. Last summer I was driving with a friend when I saw the billboard advertisement along the highway.

ME: Oh man, look! A movie version of Underdog! That's going to be so-

FRIEND: No.

ME: But, but, but, it's Underdog! It'll be so-

FRIEND: No, it won't. It's live action, with animals. TALKING ANIMALS.

ME: D'oh!

Remember: Friends don't let friends see bad movies.

Unfortunately, another attempt is coming to a theater near you and me. I'm afraid Hollywood has got my number this time.

Speed Racer.

I know I'm way behind the curve. It's been in development for quite a while. My first reaction upon seeing the news yesterday was "Oh man, look! A movie version of Speed Racer! That is going to be so cool!"

One point in its favor is it's being made by the Wachowski brothers. I mean, if they are involved, it just has to be cool, doesn't it? Maybe?

A trailer has been released:
Hi-res, slow loading version.
Lower-res, faster loading YouTube version.

Watching the trailer, Speed shooting down a candy colored race track, I started having flash backs to Tron. Which is to say I started having doubts. Maybe even the Wachowski's can't pull this off. Watching, wavering, the thought occurred to me: if this trailer shows Racer X, I'm toast. Wait, wait for it, and ... Racer X.

I am so going to see this movie next year.

TGIO

2007-12-07T17:21:00.001-05:00

Thank goodness it's over. Sporty Spec: Games of the Fantastic East Coast Book Launch Party, that is.

Actually, it's been over for a few days. Today brought closure as final details were taken care of. The party was a success. People showed up, authors read, everyone cheered. Even better, after all the readings everyone stayed, ate food, talked, laughed and had a good time. At that point, I think I was finally able to relax.

Photos are up over on the event blog. I'll be embedding video there as well, soon as everyone decides if they like what is posted.

Many, many, many thanks to Karen A. Romanko for supporting the whole idea of a East coast launch, Pandemonium Books for hosting the event, all the authors, Paul L. Bates, Alex Dally MacFarlane, E. C. Myers, Adam Nakama, and Stephen D. Rogers (and his writing partner), and most of all to the audience members who came out to hear our stories.

For your enjoyment, or just a few laughs, my reading:

Day Last

2007-11-30T09:40:00.000-05:00

Total NaNoWriMo Words: 70,068
Tonight's Dinner: Pizza
Beverages: Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee
Music: Silence
Coping Strategy #3: Prospect of being done.
Mood: Big, Silly, Grin

This is the final day of National Novel Writing Month, however I am done. Those things that need doing will be denied no longer (and they mostly have to do with the Sporty Spec East Coast Book Launch Party held two days from now.)

Many thanks to everyone stopping by to read this; hope it was more fun than boring. Highest praise and gratitude to everyone who commented, your thoughts and encouragement kept me going and going and going. Special thanks to the NaNo buddies who also lived through all the ups and downs of trying to do this crazy thing.

Also, I must praise someone I've never met or communicated with, Mario Kluser, whose little movies made me re-think the value of silly, little online videos. His thank goodness it's over video captures the giddiness and exhaustion that punctuates much of the NaNo experience.

His victory dance is fun to watch as well.

Day 27

2007-11-28T06:22:00.000-05:00

Cups of Coffee: 5
Words: 6,437

An investment in Dunkin Donuts seems like a great idea right now.

Day 26

2007-11-27T09:43:00.000-05:00

Music: Tom Waits, nighthawks at the diner
Words: 3,676

Once I hit that magical 50k number, I felt relief. It was a goal, and achieved, I sat in my little go-cart at the bottom of a steep hill, thrilled with the ride, taking a breather.

And thoughts started coming. Typical evil, little thoughts with nasty, slippery words like 'Ought to' and 'Should be' and 'Had better'. Lists of things to do started accumulating, things left undone, chores neglected, e-mail messages unreturned. I started getting anxious because yes, all those things needed doing, needed attention. Writing? Well, I met a goal, right? There is always tomorrow. Next week will be much less busy.

Then last night, thinking on all this, I gave myself a virtual slap in the face.

I didn't plan this book for months to be sitting here thinking about tomorrow. I didn't bust my butt all month to sit here contemplating next week. Next week is December. This week is November. I planned on writing in November and the month isn't done yet.

Neither am I.

Thanksgiving Weekend

2007-11-25T05:28:00.000-05:00

Words: 10,173

Wow, add up a few days and it looks rather impressive. Add up 24 days and it becomes a winner.

I broke the 50k barrier and thus succeeded in the NaNoWriMo challenge. I am way behind on my personal goal of writing 100k this month. On the bright side, I'm only half-way through the novel, so 100k looks not only possible, but spectacular. Just need to keep the pressure on somehow.

In honor of the win and because I haven't posted in a while, here is a triple dose of characters.

Chuckie befriends Steve at Garbageland. Right out of Southie, Chuckie means well, but tends to get into minor scrapes, pulling Steve in with him.

Curtis Waggstaff is the head honcho, the big cheese, numero uno. He just looks due for a whuppin', don't he?

Finally, Inez, the last of the major characters. She also befriends Steve (very, very close friend, wink wink nudge nudge say no more) and will be the key to solving the whole damn mess I've created.

Day 20

2007-11-21T08:56:00.000-05:00

Tonight's Dinner: Spaghetti, Frozen Veg.
Yesterday's Words: 4,033

For those of you so inclined to celebrate, may you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

If not, for tomorrow, hope you have a great meal, stay in touch with friends and family, take some time off, and get in a little nap.

The character Tamora is in charge of most of Garbageland, second only to her boss, Curtis Waggstaff. She is smart, ambitious, capable. Tamora suspects her boss is involved in more than the usual corruption. Exposing him might present an opportunity for promotion. It might also take her down with the sinking ship.

Days 18 & 19

2007-11-20T06:45:00.000-05:00

Score: Common Cold 3 - Household 0
Words: 1,015

It wasn't enough for Mr. Common Cold to take out the two adults in the house, he went after the wee child too! The rat bastard!

Family first, words second.

Been busy as well nailing down details of the
Sporty Spec East Coast Book Launch Party!

Told you I'd be bringing that up again. Still time to buy passage on your conveyance of choice, whether plane, train, kayak, or just bursting out of your house and bicycling like mad, to get to the event.

Or you could just stay home, I suppose, and like, write.

If you choose the latter, here are some peppy words about writing over on the NaNoWriMo site from that Neil Gaiman fellow.

Day 17

2007-11-18T11:08:00.000-05:00

Music: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Last DJ
Words: 4,533

Twas a good day, on a weekend when nothing was scheduled. Fortunate to get a big block of time in the house alone, and poured out the words.

Another character to introduce, the Sarge. Kind of a elite security person, except I got this funny idea that there might be more than one of him. Not clones, just a number of similarly featured individuals with some vague idea of them taking something to make their skin look like some kind of android-whitewash. Yeah, still working on that one.

Day 16

2007-11-17T11:20:00.000-05:00

Mood: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Words: 2,016

Had a nice meet-up yesterday with Dan, fellow NaNo-er and stay-at-home-parent. We got in 90+ minutes of writing above and beyond the enjoyable conversation.

I wrote longhand (no laptop here). Not my preferred method. I applied some analysis to reevaluate.

On the positive side, it slowed down my thinking resulting in better words and fewer passive sentences. I wrote about 1,200 words or 400 per 30 minutes, slower than typing even for me.

Then it needed typing into the computer. A plus to that is I added another 800 words as I filled out ideas, sentences, descriptions, and dialog. Yes, I know the word for that is editing.

Since my handwriting makes chicken scratch look like John Hancock calligraphy, there were some moments of wondering: what the heck is that word? Hand cramps versus carpal tunnel is a wash.

I think I'll stick with the computer.

In the category of more cool stuff those crazy NaNo-ers are doing, click here for a graph of various writers' word counts. The chart of statistics is here (my secret agent code name is 'Aught5').

What is amazing is how the data is gathered and updated. There is a thread in the NaNo forums for this graph. Anyone who replies to the message has their user ID associated with the thread. A program gets the user ID's automagically and then gets the recorded word counts for each from the NaNo site. Pretty darn cool.

I guess that XML stuff is useful.

Days 14 & 15

2007-11-16T00:35:00.000-05:00

Coping Strategy #2: Writing Buddies
Words: 0

Took 2 days off to try and send this cold back under the damp, foetid rock from which it emerged to wreak its puny yet annoying wrath upon humanity.

Seems to have worked okay. Word count has suffered and a big push is needed this weekend. Fortunately, I think I have some time available.

One aspect that I enjoy a great deal about NaNoWriMo is the community. Sure, I could take my time, write a book over five or six months, but I'd be lacking thousands of people doing the same thing at the exact same time. People worldwide who are around 24 hours a day. People who live locally from varied backgrounds, sometimes in situations similar to mine.

Today (Friday morning that is) I'm off to a nearby B&N to meet up with some NaNo-ers, a few stay-at-home-fathers and a writing buddy I haven't seen in some time. I may be writing longhand (no laptop), but I'll be writing, with fellow writers at my side and I at theirs.

Day 13

2007-11-14T08:42:00.000-05:00

Words: 2,895

Good enough for government work.

Day 12

2007-11-13T06:37:00.001-05:00

Tonight's Dinner: Don't know. Suggestions?
Yesterday's Words: 3,648

No school yesterday. Pushed on in the evening. Somehow found a groove and got the words in.

I mentioned Mario Kluser, another NaNo-er, before. He's recording video blogs. He seems to be a good guitar player as well. Check out his very fine rendition of Blackbird.

Days 10 & 11

2007-11-12T06:10:00.000-05:00

Night Shifts: 2
Soccer Games: 1
In-laws Over For Dinner: 7
Words: 833

How'd I ever write 833? It's a miracle.

That nano-meter in the sidebar is looking rather sad. Have to do something about that this week.

To continue the parade of characters, here is Jorge. He's a minor functionary with ambitions who falls in love with Roz. Too bad for him, as she holds his fate in her hands (sounds familiar, eh?).

Day 9

2007-11-10T05:59:00.000-05:00

Fluids: Water, Orange Juice, Green Tea
Words: 3,523

A good day, nice scenes, flowing words.

And now we come to the end of the week, a holiday-three-day-no-school-on-Monday-weekend. Good for family and friends, not so much for words.

Have a great weekend!

Day 8

2007-11-09T06:14:00.000-05:00

Music: Edith Piaf, Django Reinhardt, Dr. Didg
Words: 3,744

Not better, not worse. Soldiering on.

Picked up some tunes from the library. Nice eclectic mix.

Next up, the Ninja. At least, he plays one on television.

Day 7

2007-11-08T05:12:00.000-05:00

Mood: Slogging through a swamp dragging a capsized sunken boat filled with rocks.
Words: 1,618

An Open Letter To The Common Cold

Dear Sir:

I do not require your services at this time. To be frank,

I am not getting sick.

You seem to think I am already under contract. The mistake is yours and I shall explain why.

- Aches, pains, sore muscles.
Merely the result of sitting for hours before the computer.

- Sore throat.
Coughing on a bit of toast.

- Tickling feeling in the nose like my lymphatic system is draining down my throat.
Dry air. Low humidity. Dehydration from too much coffee. Look, it doesn't really matter, now does it?

I Am Not Getting Sick.

Check my schedule. Is there a 'To Do' item that says develop sinus headache? Do you see a time slot in my calendar that can accommodate your meeting invitation titled: "Lay in bed and moan like you're going to die"? No, there isn't. Do you know why? Because, Mr. Common Cold,

I WILL NOT GET SICK!

Now piss off!

Best regards,
-Todd

p.s. For anyone else reading this, below is another character, Roz, Steve's girlfriend. Steve has begun to not trust her. Too bad because she holds his fate in her hands.

Day 6

2007-11-07T06:12:00.000-05:00

Coping Strategy #1: Rewards
Words: 2,658

If I'm going to kick myself when I'm down (for inspiration, of course) then I figure I should reward myself when I'm up.

Put another way, writing presents daily, if not hourly, opportunity costs. I could be doing this or I could be writing. I could be doing that or I could be writing.

It's important every so often to say 'You know what? Today was a good day and I will let myself go check out what the Spice Girls are doing.'

Not that I would do that. No, I would do something with a much higher geekiness factor.

On the NaNoWriMo forums, someone posted a link to Hero Machine 2.5, an online application that creates cartoon-like pictures of superheros. Or anyone you want. For example, a character in a book.

The website has other hero machines (a random selection on guitar hero can be amusing). The 2.5 version has many more options than the others. Admittedly, the body types aren't realistic. And for all the work someone put into this, you would think it would be easier to match a pair of shoes. But it's free, and cool, and fun.

Here is the main character in my novel, Esteban (a.k.a Steve):

Day 5

2007-11-06T05:31:00.000-05:00

Tonight's Dinner:

Chicken
Butternut Squash
Potatoes
Halloween Candy

Yesterday's Words: 4,435

Right back into a groove, which is good. Can't update word count as NaNoWriMo.org has been down for 6+ hours, which is bad. [Edit: My bad. The server redirect from nanowrimo.org is flaky. But using www.nanowrimo.org will work.]

They'd been having issues with server loads and a new content management system, which they'd been swearing to fix and drop next year respectively.

The NaNo folks had been introducing some new stuff. One is a channel, if you will, on a video upload site called Viddler. I've spent very, very, very little time browsing the videos (really, I swear) many of which, unfortunately, are very much teen, angsty, navel-gazing, whining productions (not that there is anything wrong with that; but it doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy watching it).

One exception is a Dutch fellow named Mario Kluser whose videos at least have a sense of humor. Here is one video he made which, actually isn't humorous at all, but did give me a moment of pause to think about the whole NaNo big picture.

Okay, back to writing.

Day 4

2007-11-05T05:55:00.000-05:00

Loads of Leaves Hauled: 4
Scarecrows Disassembled: 2
Hours Worked at Paying Job: 6
Words Written: 0

Time to kick it up a notch.

Day 3

2007-11-04T07:17:00.000-05:00

Score: BU 7, UML 4
Words: 1,222

Quick Poll: If there is more than one person in your household, who was responsible for turning back the clocks?

Low word count. My better half was laid low with a cold. And I took my daughter to a hockey game last night (score above; the irony is we left after the second period when BU was down 2-4 and missed a 5-goal come-back).

Today will likely be low as well. Have to make up for it this week.

Day 2

2007-11-03T06:29:00.000-04:00

Beverages:

1 glass orange juice
3 cups of coffee
20 oz. water
1 Sam Adams Boston Ale

Words: 3,631

Making good progress so far. Pleasantly surprised that while I have an outline, I've already added two scenes. Best of both worlds, planning as well as seat-of-the-pants flying.

And now the weekend. It's tempting to think there will be more time on the weekend. For myself, it is usually the opposite. It's as if there is a potential vacuum of activity that is always filled with the onrushing wind of things-to-do.

So I better stop blogging and get cracking.

Day 1

2007-11-02T06:53:00.000-04:00

Music: Nirvana, With The Lights Out (compilation)
Words: 3,400

Great first day. Congrats to Cheryl for a great first NaNo day. Congrats to Ian for a great non-NaNo but still doing a daily writing challenge first day!

As the NaNoWriMo site says (sort of), you can't finish if you don't start.

Onto day 2!

NaNoWriMo - Day 0

2007-11-01T06:25:00.000-04:00

Mood: Determined
Words: 1,003

Got home from work just after midnight. Sat butt in chair (BIC) and started typing. I've had the first scene in my head for so long, it was hard to pull back and slowly let the words out.

That will be the key. Slow burn.

More Cool Than ...

2007-10-30T07:00:00.000-04:00

That Gaiman fellow is a nice guy. In his journal entry for October 24th (sorry, I can't quite link directly to it) he gives props to NaNoWriMo.

In the sidebar of this blog is a NaNo word count widget (at least, it was there at the time of this post. If you're reading this in January, 2015: apologies.) I had been haunting the NaNo forums waiting for the widgeteer to announce they were active. The widgeteer said once live they would be hosted by a high profile site, I'm assuming to take the bandwidth hit.

And what is the high profile site hosting the widgets?

NeilGaiman.com

Can that dude get any cooler?

2007 World Series Champions

2007-10-29T00:59:00.000-04:00

The Boston Red Sox

:-)

:-)

:-)

:-)

:-)

Go Time ...

2007-10-26T12:44:00.000-04:00

I meant to get the small/indie publishers list up by now, but time has been lacking to do proper research. Plus, National Novel Writing Month is five days away. Extraneous tasks need to be dropped. Time wasting activities need to be eliminated.

Last May I went through a process to become more productive. Let's take a look at the list.

1. No Red Sox Games.
Well, that was just for the month of May. The World Series will be over by November 2nd. There is college hockey, however. So I'll refrain from checking scores in November.

2. Check e-mail once a day.
I failed miserably before. It's addictive. And really, even though I just checked it, someone might have sent a message several seconds ago!

I'll try to commit to no e-mail between 9 - 5.

3. Stop checking the stat counter.
I gave that up cold turkey. Well, reduced it to once a month as part of overall web maintenance.

4. No Library Books.
All the books have been returned. No distractions. No magazines. No quick reads.

5. No games.
This time it's quite silly. The game 'Hearts' is installed on my computer. I know, it's only a step away from solitaire. But I'm up to a winning stat of 32%. I've got it on the run.

No more games.

6. Reduce the guilt pile.
I don't have many other books waiting to be read. The only book I'll open in November is that damn Pynchon novel which requires a kind of marathon reading effort.

7. Reduce blog browsing.
I had moved most of my blog bookmarks to the blog page. I'll go a step further. No web surfing until 11 pm. Er, 10 pm. No, no, 11. Definitely 11 pm.

10:30

8. Hiatus from critiquing.
I haven't done any critiquing in a while so no danger there.

Okay, looking good. Five more days to get the house in order, stock up on microwaveable meals, and dive in.

Party In My Mind ...

2007-10-23T06:48:00.000-04:00

Last Book Read: Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

There's a party in my mind. Just remains to make it real.

As earlier reported, one of my stories was selected for the anthology Sporty Spec: Games of the Fantastic. Since I could not attend the west coast launch, I offered to organize the east coast launch.

If you happen to be in the Boston area on December 2nd, please stop by Pandemonium Books in Cambridge between 3:00 and 6:00 pm. It'll be a grand time!

If you forget, no worries. I'm sure I'll be mentioning it again (and again and again) as the date approaches.

Those In Big Houses ...

2007-10-19T12:26:00.000-04:00

It would be interesting to know how publishers came to use the term 'House'. It is hard to refer to the companies below as houses. Or even McMansions. Much better would be Industrial Entertainment Distribution Centers.

I've been doing some research. According to the February, 2007 issue of Locus Magazine, the six uber-corps below published 60% of all SF/F/H in the United States in 2006. This surprised me. I thought it would be a higher percentage by fewer multinationals.

The list below is not comprehensive. It does focus on adult trade science fiction publishers. Links, names, and ownerships are subject to immediate change (half of what I read in the 2008 Writer's Market was already obsolete). The corporate trees may reflect distributors, subsidiaries, imprints, or brands. So, take it all with a grain of salt.

Pearson

Penguin Group

New American Library

ROC
No unsolicited manuscripts (MSS) accepted, although if one digs hard enough, these guidelines can be found, which list a word count range of 75 - 125k.

ACE Science Fiction and Fantasy
No unsolicited MSS.
DAW Books
Guidelines allow for unsolicited MSS of 80k + words.
G. B. Putnam
No unsolicited MSS. Only has best seller authors (e.g. William Gibson).

Bertelsmann AG

Random House
No unsolicited MSS.

Bantam Dell Pub. Group

Spectra

Del Ray

Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck

Macmillan

St. Martin's
No unsolicited MSS.
TOR/Forge
Guidelines do not list a minimum word count.

CBS Corporation

Simon and Schuster, Inc.
No unsolicited MSS.

Baen Books
Guidelines request word counts of 100 - 130k.

Lagardere

Hachette Book Group (formerly Time/Warner)

Orbit Books
No unsolicited MSS.

Newscorp

Harper Collins
No unsolicited MSS.

Tasty Goodness ...

2007-10-16T23:57:00.000-04:00

Some time ago, I decided to try out the bookmark site del.icio.us. Or, is it a social bookmarking network? A social network of bookmarks? Web 2.0 is beginning to confuse me.

My bookmark list at the time was growing like mildew in a humid basement (don't ask how I know about such things). I tried del.icio.us (which is hell to type over and over) and found it lacking. At least for some purposes.

Call it an overly hierarchical mindset. Call it a Windows zombification. I make no apologies. I want my bookmarks in nested folders. del.icio.us just doesn't cut it for my bookmarking needs.

This is not to say I stopped using it.

Over at del.... over there I've got dozens of bookmarks for research on stories and novels. I don't need to refer to them often, but when I do it's relatively painless. And they don't clutter up the more important bookmarks in Firefox.

And the social networking thing is working as well.

I received an e-mail from Andreas Grunewald (who has an airship blog). He uses ... that site's subscription option to keep track of airship tags and bookmarks. Seeing mine he got in touch, pointing me to other links and websites. Useful.

In addition, I have a fan, at least as ... that site terms it. It goes without saying, I am her fan too.

And, despite all the work I put into my website, it comes up third in a Google search, behind this blog and ... that site.

No, not literally the third link on Google. But the third page isn't bad. Someone else seems to have a lock on the very first search result.

Maybe, someday, I'll run into Deb Todd Wheeler. Too bad she doesn't have an account on ... you know.

Martha Quest Triumphant ...

2007-10-12T11:19:00.000-04:00

Please take a moment to celebrate. Doris Lessing, superb author, has been awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Ms. Lessing must be a trifle amused. I recently read an interview with her (sorry, can't find the link though I believe the interview was conducted not long ago). Lessing said at one point she had been told by a Nobel judge that Lessing would never be seriously considered for the prize because, simply, the judges didn't like her.

I guess someone changed their mind.

Lessing's short stories are wonderful, her novels thought provoking, her opinions delightfully controversial, and best of all, to quote from Wikipedia:

"Unlike some mainstream authors, she has never hesitated to admit that she writes science fiction."

Night Merde ...

2007-10-09T19:08:00.000-04:00

Last Book Read: Housing the Airship by the Architectural Association

The new novel is weighing on my mind, to the point of creating nightmares. Well, perhaps bad dream is more appropriate.

In the dream, I start reading a book in the midst of writing my own. I discover the book is very similar to my own. Same kind of story, only written better.

And funnier.

In the dream, I became frustrated and put down the book, fearful that I would unconsciously adapt and internalize (that's how we say plagiarize here in the U.S.) the work. But I kept picking it up and reading and getting frustrated again.

Right now in real life, I'm trying to get through Pynchon's Against the Day, which features airships. Different than the ones I'm imagining for my book, at a distance of 200+ years, but still, airships.

Not that I'm likely to unconsciously internalize big chunks of Pynchon. Will I?

Perhaps this is just a symptom of writerly anxiety, the generalized dread that what I'm planning on writing will be too similar to other works and pale in comparison. Or it will be bland and cliche. Or just plain suck.

I don't usually put much stock in dreams. Since I've yet to even write a word, I will conclude that this angst is just so much baloney.

Still, I wish I could remember some of those dream passages. I would have written them down.

Gol! Gol! Gol! ...

2007-10-05T07:09:00.000-04:00

Last Book Read: How We Talk by Allan Metcalf

Time to dissect the goals for the quarter just past and set new ones.

-Edit, polish, agonize over, edit again, and submit TWO short stories.
Okay, I cheated a little on this one. I polished, agonized, and edited two short stories. I submitted one (which was bounced from the publication's e-mail box; nice going guys) and the other I 'published' on my web site. So, I'm counting it.

-Continue process for new novel, preparing for NaNoWriMo in November.
Yep! Completed a lot of research. Created an outline. Wrote character sketches. Just a few more steps left.

-Pull 'Chasing Midnight' (CM) out of the compost and see if it is nutritious humus or just worm food.
Looks good. Did an outline after the fact and I think I see some places where I can expand on it.

So, for Q2 of '08:

- Submit two short stories (the one above and another that was recently rejected by one of the big pro-paying print magazines).

- Write a novel! In a month!

- Edit and polish CM. Send queries to agents. Accept multi-million dollar advance.

Oh wait. How silly of me. I can't control how soon that multi-million dollar advance will happen. It could be in Q3.

Meme-a-rific ...

2007-10-02T01:05:00.000-04:00

The quarterly report will have to wait. This was too tempting not to post. Glad that English degree was good for something.

From Merrie Haskell:

"These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users. Bold what you have read, italicize what you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an asterisk to those you've read more than once. Underline those you own but haven't read yet."

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment*
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses*
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The historian : a novel
A portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead*
Foucault's pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange*
Anansi Boys
The once and future king
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984*
Angels & demons
The Inferno
The satanic verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest*
To the lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Misérables
The corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Dune*****
The Prince
The sound and the fury
Angela's ashes : a memoir
The god of small things
A People's History of the United States : 1492-Present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A confederacy of dunces
A short history of nearly everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being*
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five*
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye*
On the Road*
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an Inquiry into Values*
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow*
The Hobbit*
White teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Anyone Get The Number ...

2007-09-28T00:59:00.000-04:00

The number of the truck, I mean. The one that ran over the U.S. Women's National soccer team.

It had Brazilian plates and was driven by a speed fiend named Marta.

If you do not have much interest in soccer (or sports) then please forgive this digression from regular programming.

I've never played soccer, never watched it really until the mid/late nineties when the women's team was winning world cups and olympic medals left and right. I still don't get a lot of the rules, and am pretty sure it's much better to see in person. But I did start to follow the women's national team when the big tournaments were held.

My daughter is playing soccer now, and seems to like it. When I realized the Women's World Cup would be going on this month, I got her interested in the tournament. A little bit anyway. Until today.

The Brazilian women are really, really, really fast. Their forward, Marta, can score goals from ridiculous distances with equally ridiculous accuracy. There are some athletes that are just so good that, even knowing nothing about the sport, you can watch them and say "Holy Crap! That was amazing." Marta is like that.

The U.S. women didn't help themselves by, early in the game, deflecting a kick into their own goal. And they could also complain about the officiating. The referee was handing out yellow cards like lemon drops. A U.S. player got a red card (ejection from the game) for having the audacity to get tripped from behind by a Brazilian player.

But the ref didn't score three more goals. The Brazilians played very aggressive, physical soccer. The Americans were more than a little back on their heels in the second half, and were shut-out, 4-0.

[Warning: cute parent/child moment ahead.]

So, while the game is going on, my daughter tells me she doesn't want to watch these soccer women again if they're going to lose. When is the next world cup? I tell her in four years and she thinks that is a good amount of time not to watch them again.

I hope she forgets by next summer. Olympic soccer in Beijing.

Odds and Ends ...

2007-09-25T20:51:00.000-04:00

Last Book Read:Lighter Than Air by David Owen

A few unrelated items, just because:

- I received a nice note from Debby Allison, a librarian from the Kiowa County Library thanking me (and indirectly you (Yes, you! You know who youse are.)) for the donation.

- Die Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei, the descendent company of the original Zeppelin manufacturers (no, not that Zeppelin) has a webcam on their airfield. Fun throwback to Web 1.0 as you can move the camera around, zoom, and, well, that's about it. No airship sightings, unfortunately.

- The U.S. Women's Soccer Team will be playing their semi-final match against Brazil in the Women's World Cup. As the tournament is being held in China, the game will be broadcast live at 8am EST, Thursday, September 27th.

You can watch it, if you subscribe to ESPN2. Or, like me, you can catch it on Telefutura (more exciting that way: Goooooooooooool! Gol! Gol! Gol! Gol! Gol!) If neither, a live text Matchcast is available at the FIFA site.

Enjoy!

Twist And ...

2007-09-21T07:08:00.000-04:00

Last Book Read: Dishwasher by Pete Jordan

Welcome to the Friday shout-out edition (yeah, I didn't know I had such a thing either until today).

Kudos to Cheryl Mills for sticking to her guns and not down-submitting her story to a non-paying market.

Congrats to Jonathan Gillespie whose story Eee (which I had the pleasure of critiquing, or as it were, not critiquing since it was written so well) can now be read at Afterburn SF.

A big 'Hey, Cool' to TVTropes.org (via SF Signal) of many, many, many SF plot devices to avoid.

And finally, a hearty 'You Go, Grrrl' to DD. Thanks for reading the blog and good luck on your new adventure. As the old, French-Canadian retail saying goes: May your gun never jam, may the box be well organized, and may you never get the taxable order.

Measure Twice ...

2007-09-14T00:23:00.000-04:00

Last Book Read: Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand by Samuel R. Delany

To continue on the previous post, I've been trying out a new tool for my craft. yWriter is free software from author Simon Haynes. It was written for Windows, though according to the website it can be run on Linux and presumably, if one is adventurous enough, on OS X and beyond.

yWriter uses text files behind the scenes, a nice feature since if it ever decides to die I can retrieve everything I've written very easily (unless it eats all those .txt files).

It took me a long, long time to get used to the interface. This could be the lack of thorough documentation (what do you want for free). Though for someone who has lived and breathed technology and can learn how to use new software pretty darn quick, I found many things un-intuitive. For example, in the chapter window, depending on where one clicks on a flat area of data, it will bring up the scene window or a list for that data item, or do nothing. Not to mention 'bug-like' behavior when trying to save certain scene settings (it's not a bug, it's a feature). Strike one.

For my next novel, I started with taking notes and jotting down ideas, characters, and scenes. In yWriter the place to put this information is the project notes file. Since it is a text file, no indexing is available, no hyperlinks. After several months of scrolling up and down and up and down I threw in the towel and moved all of it into Word. Strike two.

Recently I got to the stage of outlining. Here yWriter does better than Word, at least for me. Visually, I have a better sense of the chapters and scenes and the characters in each than I could by flagging them at different header levels in Word.

There are different ways to print the outline (though I wish there were ways to include different pieces of data in those formats) and a nice colorful storyline by viewpoint character. Software grounds a weak single on a funny hop past the shortstop.

There is a new version under development which has additional features, but using freeware is risk enough without wading into beta freeware.

yWriter is useful enough that I will put up with data in two places and try using it in November to write the novel. After this, I will likely continue searching for the one perfect tool.

You'd think as a craftsperson, I'd know such things don't exist.

Writing Is Like ...

2007-09-07T22:06:00.000-04:00

Last Book Read: How To Write Science Fiction And Fantasy by Orson Scott Card

Writing is not like a box of chocolates. Or maybe it is. But I'm not going to talk about that.

Writing is like programming/coding. I've spent a lot of time the past few weeks on the latter for a website (XHTML and CSS and PHP - oh my!) and there are similarities.

Writing/Coding is a craft.

Genres are like computer languages

Great writers/programmers are lazy

Of course, this comparison won't bear up under intense scrutiny. You all are friends so I know you won't point out details like, oh, that the themes of paranoia and questions about the nature of reality by PKD have nothing to do with the deficiencies of garbage management within C++ code.

You Are All Winners ...

2007-09-02T00:34:00.000-04:00

The Summer Reading Program succeeded far beyond my expectations. I'd bet you all would have read those books anyway. You were good sports to keep submitting those titles, enduring the repeated auto-reply messages, all for a good cause. [sniff] You guys rock!

Eight participants read 52 books over 75 days! That's awesome! As a result, I will cut a check for $52 and send it to the Kiowa County Library in Greensburg, Kansas which was leveled this year by a tornado.

Again, you all rocked!

As determined by a random selection (names in a hat) the winner of the grand prize package for the First Annual Todd-Wheeler.com Summer Reading Program is:

Steve!

He knows which Steve he is.

But wait! There's more!

I would be remiss for not mentioning one individual who sacrificed so much for the cause. For reading 14 books, the most by any participant and comprising a whopping 27% of the total, not to mention the only one to have finished that damn Potter book by the deadline, congratulations go to Nathan!

For his efforts, Nathan will get a prize package of a bookmark, pencil, and pen from the wonderful gift shop at the Federal Bureau of Printing and Engraving. Yes, I got a lot out of that trip to D.C.

Thanks again, truly and sincerely. I had a lot of fun.

Last Chance ...

2007-08-27T00:26:00.001-04:00

Last Book Read: Web Design on a $hoestring by Carrie Bickner

Feels like I have flogged this contest forever. It has been several months of my exhorting everyone to Read! Read! Read!

In that time period I myself have gotten through about a book a week. But those don't count towards the charitable donation. Only books read by you all do!

[Puts fundraiser hat on] Yes, the total is up to $47 as of today. That is great, more than I could have hoped for. Did you notice how close to $50 it is? $50 is a nice number, isn't it?

Just think of all the things that libraries have done for you in your lifetime. I'm sure of all the people who have participated so far, there will be three more books read by the end of this Friday.

That would be great! Yes, that nice round number of $50. Yes, three more, that's nothing. How about 8 more?

Don't Blink ...

2007-08-20T01:24:00.000-04:00

Last Book Read: Guatemala, Belize, and Yucatan edited by Huw Hennessy

There are times when I stare at the blog beast. Right into its dark, cold eyes. Stare, stare, stare. And come up empty.

That is to say: I've got nothing.

Could be working 4 of the past 5 nights. Could be the web project I promised a friend I'd help with that has now come due. Could be the final, full days of summer.

Some days are better than others. Fortunately, there's a brand new 24 hours tomorrow.

Happy Monday!

Some Links Are Better ...

2007-08-13T06:53:00.000-04:00

Last Book Read: Radio Freefall by Matthew Jarpe

Matt Jarpe's debut novel, Radio Freefall is now available. Go buy it. You'll enjoy it. Really. I'm not kidding!

Camille Alexa has a poem, "Blind Date", up online at Bewildering Stories. Go read it. You'll enjoy it. Have I ever steered you wrong?

Camille had a post on her blog about time wasting sites. It's a bit past expiration to post there, but I will give up a link that won't take up too much of your time. I found it via William Gibson's blog. I'm not linking to his blog. He links to way too many cool things for me to enable you that way.

I'll just include this one item, a site called PlanetHiltron, that uses Photoshop to make celebrities look like ordinary people. Go laugh at the pictures. It won't take long. I promise.

Ex-Size Part II ...

2007-08-09T17:11:00.000-04:00

There is a lot of advice for writers: free, expensive, great, terrible, contradictory. One tidbit that I think all writers should heed is this: Do what works for you.

I'll add to it: Be honest with yourself about what works. For example, editing after each draft had been a soul-grinding fight for myself.

In a prior post I had to get a story down to 6,000 words to meet a submissions guideline. Editing to that goal worked well. It was not drudgery, it was a puzzle to be solved, word by word, sentence by sentence. Not only was the story shorter, it was tighter, cleaner, better. (Okay, who else hears the intro from the Six Million Dollar Man in their heads?)

I repeated the process on another story. It had been rejected four times. I could have sent it out again, but tried this first. The story had a word count north of 7,600. Using Cheryl Mills' suggestion of 10%, I went at it.

On the first pass, I cut as if with a machete. Second time with a scalpel. How do I get rid of a word in this line? Five in this paragraph? Twenty on this page? It was, dare I say it, easy. Almost, fun. It made editing enjoyable. The word count went south of 6,900. And it is a tighter, cleaner, better story.

It works for me. Maybe not for everyone. What works for you?

What Would You Pay ...

2007-08-06T13:02:00.000-04:00

Last Book Read: You: The Owner's Manual by Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz

While browsing in Borders the other day, I pulled a book by Terry Pratchett off the shelf. To my surprise, the book cost $7.99. Eight bucks for a paperback? Did I miss something?

I pulled other books off the shelf and saw the same price. I reached for the thinnest volumes which were slightly less at $6.99 each. This seemed much higher than before.

Back home, I looked at the Pratchett book I had bought last year: $7.50

Then the one from two years ago: $6.99

An increase of 14% over two years? Have gas prices pushed the cost of distribution that high?

In terms of a price point I'd have to say $8 is too high for me to try out a paperback book by an unknown author. It's borderline too high for any author. I could get a hardcover edition of the Pratchett book on eBay for $8 plus shipping.

Yet, new hardcover books don't seem to be that much higher in price than before. Perhaps this is because of deep discounts on release and the even deeper discount once the hardcover hits the remainder tables. Are paperbacks subsidizing the hardcover discounts?

What do you all think? Would you pay $8 for a paperback from your favorite author? For a lesser known one? For an unknown one?

Swag ...

2007-08-03T10:21:00.000-04:00

Last Book Read: Yoga Basics by Mara Carrico

Just four weeks left, a mere 28 days, in the Summer Reading Contest. As of this writing $31 has been raised by seven diligent readers.

The prize package for the contest has now been posted. Just click on the contest link above to see what wonderful goodies you could win.

Post Edge ...

2007-07-30T23:20:00.000-04:00

The Canadian magazine of the fantastic, ON SPEC, requires manuscripts to be sent by mail. Likewise, a SASE must be enclosed for a response. There are two choices for postage for the SASE:
1) procure Canadian stamps
2) get an international reply coupon (IRC)

I stop by my local PO and, after confirming Canadian stamps are not sold in the U.S., casually ask for an IRC, only having a vague idea of what it might be, look like, or cost. Sorry, I was told. None available. Try a post office in town X or Y.

I call the PO in town X, the one closest by, and the conversation is something like this:

Me: Do you have international reply coupons?

Civil Servant #1: International what?

Me : International reply coupons.

CS1: [to someone in the PO] Do we have international reply coupons?

CS2: Oh, no, [something unintellible about bats]

CS1: No sir, they're not -- what? They what?

Me : Uhhh...

CS1: Here, talk to her.

CS2: [in polite but limited english] No sir, no IRC's since the changes. Okay?

Me : Thank you.

Okay, town Y is a bit bigger. I call the PO there and am told this:

CS3 : Oh, IRC's? Nawww, we haven't had those since the rates went up. Actually, I don't think they exist anymore. Yah, you can't get them.

I wish I were making this up.

Some research is needed. The USPS has a handy International Mail Manual. Section 372 clearly describes the IRC, it's price ($2.00) and a little background on recent changes (the old ones expired on 12/31/2006). A little more digging uncovers the previous price ($1.85).

Okay, now to find a PO that knows what these are. A nearby city has a location that I think is a main branch (Hey, "Downtown". That must be the big one). I call and am informed, yes, they have IRC's.

Hurray! I make the trip in the afternoon and find the "Downtown" branch is a tiny hole in the wall. Erm, okay. Enter and greet the two civil servants standing behind the counter and inquire about the IRC. They look at each other.

CS4: Do we have those here?

CS5: Yes, Dave brought some from the main branch.

CS4: Aren't those the old ones?

CS5: No. They're the new ones. But I have to look them up. [Opens a stapled stack of copied pages.]

CS4: Jeez, where are they? Are they in the safe? [Wanders to the back.]

CS5: They're back there. I don't know how much they are now.

Me : [Trying to be helpful] I think they're two dollars.

CS4: Are they in the safe? I'd have to do a transfer to you, right?

CS5: I have to look them up.

CS4: I've never seen one; never sold one in ten years here.

CS5: We sold them all the time at the main branch.

Me : [Wishing I was at the main branch.]

CS4: [Disappearing behind a wall] I think this is them. Are these it?

CS5: I'm looking it up. [Goes to the computer to punch in something.]

CS4: Do I have to transfer these to you?

Me : [Notices a line of people forming behind me. Pretends interest in a pamphlet on the counter.]

CS5: Okay, they cost $1.85 each. [To me] How many did you want?

Me : [Sinking feeling about the price] Uhm, just one. Isn't that the old-

CS5: [To CS4] I found it! It's [some number code]!

CS4: Wait. What am I doing with these?

Eventually CS4 and CS5 confer beyond the wall, conducting bureaucratic business out of site in case I prove to be an agent of W.A.S.T.E. Finally, the IRC is produced. It is indeed the new one (expires 12/31/2009) and, remarkably, really is the old price of $1.85.

I pay for the IRC and slip out of the PO under the watchful, malevolent gaze of the eight people wondering what the hell was so special about what I just bought that it took so damn long.

Meme Or Writhe ...

2007-07-27T22:10:00.000-04:00

Last Book Read: Finder by Emma Bull

Matt Jarpe is a science fiction writer. His debut novel, Radio Freefall is due out soon. And, he tagged me.

I like playing these blog-chain-letter games once in a while. Tagging ten other people is a bit of a burden. I will fulfill my tagged-state obligations, however, and provide the information below. If anyone would like to take up the torch, be my guest.

-Start Copy-

It's very simple. When this is passed on to you, copy the whole thing, skim the list and put a * star beside those that you like. (Check out especially the * starred ones.)

Add the next number (1. 2. 3. 4. 5., etc.) and write your own blogging tip for other bloggers. Try to make your tip general.

After that, tag 10 other people. Link love some friends!

Just think- if 10 people start this, the 10 people pass it onto another 10 people, you have 100 links already!

1. Look, read, and learn. *****
-http://www.neonscent.com

2. Be, EXCELLENT to each other. *****
-http://www.bushmackel.com

3. Don't let money change ya! ***
-http://www.therandomforest.info

4. Always reply to your comments. ****
-http://chattiekat.com

5. Link liberally -- it keeps you and your friends afloat in the Sea of Technorati. ***
-http://chipsquips.com

6. Don't give up - persistance is fertile. **
-http://www.velcro-city.co.uk

7. Give link credit where credit is due.**
-http://www.sfsignal.com

8. What the world needs is content. Provide it. *
-http://feedback.matthewjarpe.com

9. Link without expectations of reciprocity. It is better to give than to get.
-http://todd-wheeler.blogspot.com

-End Copy-

A Writer Writes ...

2007-07-23T07:33:00.000-04:00

Rick O. is a writer, occasional commenter here, and my best friend. He is in town visiting from the left coast, and I invited him to contribute a guest blog post.

"A writer writes. You may have already figured this out, but when an instructor first said this at a session of the Gotham Writers’ Workshop in 1999, the words unleashed a world-altering revolution for me.

"Until then, and like so many other would-be writers, I thought that one was only an authentic writer when they’d had something published. Sure, you might waste hours scribbling a perfectly clean paper full of confusing pen scratches or clog the precious hard drive of a balky computer, but this doodling amounted to nothing more than a hobby. Or maybe a self-indulgent escape from real responsibility. I was certain that you weren’t a real writer unless at least one other human being had acknowledged the value of your labor by bringing the words into print in a public forum.

"Yet here was a woman I respected, not the least for her own impressive achievement in published fiction, telling me that the mantle worn by Faulkner, Hemingway, and Vonnegut could indeed be mine. All it took was action. On my part.

"How frightening. After all, it was much easier to stifle myself than to take responsibility for my own dream. If the only requirement to call oneself a writer was to spend a little time each day writing, what could stop me from doing it?

"I’m embarrassed to remember all the excuses.

"But her words resonated with me, and took root in a way that was impossible to ignore. Through an amicable, if cool divorce, a separation from an emotionally unfulfilling if financially lucrative job, and an exchange of coasts, I couldn’t escape the simple truth of this other writer’s statement.

"All it took to be able to call oneself a writer was to take time to write every day. That’s it. Take a moment to think about this yourself. If you write today, you ARE a writer. Even if what you write never gets published. Even if no one else ever reads a word.

"This truth still animates my daily work, and one of my goals is to spread the word. I have now been published, and occasionally even read, but when a newbie or wanna-be asks me what it takes to be a writer I’m happy to tell them. A writer writes.

"Keep on writing!"

Ex-Size ...

2007-07-17T13:46:00.000-04:00

The most recent short story I completed is set near Toronto. I had OnSpec in mind for the first submission try since the magazine is published in Canada. Their guidelines are very clear on maximum word count: 6,000.

My story clocked in at 6,371.

A little daunting. I had already pared it down quite a bit. Could I get rid of another page and a half? Looking at it another way, 16 words per page had to be cut. That seemed possible.

Red pen in hand, I went at it. Something strange happened. I enjoyed editing. Usually I can't stand it, not because I think every word is perfect the moment it flows from my fingertips. Just that I want to move on already to the next thing. But I buckle down and do it, again and again and again.

This time, it was like a game. Word search with a scalpel. Tight sentences became snare drums. I looked hard then harder eventually cut two whole sentences. The words helped, but not enough. Like party crashers, they weren't missed after they were gone.

A new strategy for editing? On the next story, I'll pretend I need to cut the text down by a certain percentage and see if it works.

Account Ability ...

2007-07-12T17:11:00.000-04:00

Currently Reading:Complete Food and Nutrition Guide by Roberta Larson Duyff

That time again to check the quarterly goals. Past time, in fact. I took an extra week to compensate for the vacation in June. As the CEO, CIO, and COO of this company, I can change deadlines at will.

And hey! Good news:

FY07 Q4 Goals
-Finish editing 'Chasing Midnight', SF novel.
Done!

-Edit, polish, agonize over, edit again, and submit a new short story.
Done-arific!!

-Start process for new novel: 20,000 foot view, theme, basic idea, etc.
Done-tastic!!!

Now, while the Asimov's rejection finally did arrive^*, there was good news this quarter with an accepted story. Overall, investors are happy and have gone to the beach to sip the beverage of their choice. Join them in the comments with your beverage of choice! Mine would be a very cold, pale-amber colored craft beer.

...

...

Okay, enough celebrating. Back to work!

FY08 Q1 Goals
-Edit, polish, agonize over, edit again, and submit TWO short stories.

-Continue process for new novel, preparing for NaNoWriMo in November.

-Pull 'Chasing Midnight' out of the compost and see if it is nutritious humus or just worm food.

^* The response from Asimov's arrived 120 days after submission.

66K ...

2007-07-08T22:14:00.000-04:00

Currently Reading:A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born by Harry Harrison

Chasing Midnight is the name of the book. I've been working on it for over two years. From a sliver of an idea from a dream I had, the crappy draft was born. This expanded to the official crappy first draft.

I had high hopes when I finished scribbling in red ink. I thought there were enough ideas to get this second draft in shape. And the editing went well, in the beginning.

Later, there was more cutting than writing. The last few dozen pages had big 'X' marks. Sentences, paragraphs, a whole chapter: wiped out! It was necessary, certainly. But I had hoped the end result would be the supposed minimum for marketability: one hundred thousand words.

I've got 66,006 (at least, according to MS Word, which is probably counting page numbers, headers, and 'typos' it fixed).

The good news: it is done. The bad news: what do I really have at this point? Is there more there there? Will a major third draft (shudders) get this to the holy grail of 100k? Or do I have a trumped up novella with pretentions?

For now, it goes off the desk to sit/rest/stew/age/marinate. At least I know to do that much and not give up on it, yet.

Have you all done that? Walked away from a novel knowing that it just wasn't going to work? I've done it twice (well 2.5 times). This one was going to be different.

Or maybe the next one.

Pardon Our Appearance ...

2007-07-03T01:21:00.000-04:00

Currently Reading: Liquid From The Sun's Rays by Sue Greenleaf

Sorry for the delay in posting.

So, hurray and huzzah for both Littlebird Blue and myself had stories accepted in the Sporty Spec anthology! Very cool.

The reason for my absence was a family vacation down to D.C., Virginia, and the Bronx (long story). It was quite a trip. We had a list of must-see sites. Having been down there many times over the years, I had just one goal: the Library of Congress.

My adventure is chronicled in the book link above. Even if I didn't have time to browse, I absolutely had to have an LOC library card:

A Muse Sing ...

2007-06-21T12:13:00.000-04:00

Some weeks ago, I read the guidelines for the Sporty Spec Anthology (I believe Ms. LBB pointed the way over there). The idea of games/sports themed stories seemed very cool.

I filed it away under a mental pile of National Geographic magazines, and there is where it sat. Resting, fermenting, stewing, aging: however you want to put it. I wasn't conciously thinking about it.

One evening I read Steve B.'s post about his muse and it occurred to me to check the anthology again. The book was filling up with submissions. If I wanted to participate I had to get cracking on a story. I went to bed, turned off the light, and started thinking.

An idea bubbled up. Turned the light back on and scribbled on paper. That idea more than bubbled, it gushed. Two hours later I had about 675 words (I was writing slow - okay, I was writing slow so that I could actually read my handwriting the next day). A few tweaks with some much appreciated critique from a friend on very short notice (thanks again!) and it was done.

That was a record pace. I'm still rather amazed it worked out so well. Was that whole story really just simmering under the covers? If I had tried to write it the next day would it have come out the same or as good? However it worked, I'm just grateful that it did, and for those that helped it along the way.

Summertime, Hold the Blues ...

2007-06-18T21:46:00.000-04:00

Currently Reading: This Immortal by Roger Zelazny

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter - That's how I rank them (and I'd take an extended fall and spring over winter any time). Not technically summer yet, but we're past Memorial Day, school is out, the weather is warm-to-hot, so let's call it summer and declare victory.

Summer. Time to relax a bit. Slow down. Chill out. Vacations. Swimming. Fun. Family. Friends. And books!

Plenty of time for reading, right? Heh.

To be honest, I don't have a single clear day on the calendar until mid-August, and I expect there will be scribbles on those 'empty' days before the end. But I will make time for writing. And reading. I hope you will as well.

Because there is a new contest over on my website. All you have to do is read. And send me an e-mail.

---
p.s. Double tagged by LBB and Steve:

"If there are one or more people on your friends list who make your world a better place just because they exist, and whom you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal."

When You Assume ...

2007-06-15T01:28:00.000-04:00

Currently Reading: Gone Tomorrow by Heather Rogers

Do you know the rest of the saying from the post title?

According to Asimov's submission guidelines if I have not heard back within three months then I can assume my manuscript was lost in the mail.

I'm a bit disappointed. It was over a month ago when I sent them another SASE with extra postage for the impending rate hike. I'd think the least they could do was use it to say: "Mmmm-no sorry, can't locate your work."

I'm welcome to resubmit it, the guidelines offer. After three months I think I'd like to try it somewhere else. What do you all think? Have you had similar experiences?

Thank You For Holding ...

2007-06-11T06:16:00.000-04:00

Currently Reading:Windows Vista Unleashed by Paul McFedries

Been busy recently with many small waves that turned into a little tsunami of life. Mostly good stuff, family stuff, and a lot of hours devoted to a new computer (finally, finally, finally). But enough about me.

Ms. Littlebird-Blue will be published in the Ruins anthology. Congratulations, er, what's your name again? ;-)

Edit:
And another just in. I made the acquaintance of Meika Loofs Samorzewski through the Critters site. The story he had up for critique is now available online: "I Want A Mechanical Echidna"

I Ain't Got Time For That Now ...

2007-06-01T06:54:00.000-04:00

Currently Reading: Bone Dance by Emma Bull

#8 - Hiatus from critiquing

At Critters Writers' Workshop one has to pay to play. Before my own story could be commented on, I had to comment on others. Good experience in itself. At this point I have a lot of credits and can coast for a bit (though I do owe a few people for whom I will reciprocate their critques).

This concludes our month of time saving measures. It always comes back to time, for me. Making the best use of it. Finding more of it. Managing it better.

Some of my efforts were easier than others (I still have no desire to check those statistics). I did break down and get some more library books even though there's one more old one I have to read. But, I have a plan to make up for that (more later).

I feel like I've gotten into some good habits (as opposed to bad ones) and will continue to do my best on most of them. Most.

Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go watch the Red Sox deliver a big can of whupass to the pinstripes.

Or C. B. G. B. ...

2007-05-29T09:54:00.000-04:00

Currently Reading: Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte

#7 - Reduce blog browsing.

In the Firefox browser, right click on a folder containing bookmarks. Select 'Open in tabs'. This is what I would do to read a dozen plus blogs. Easy and convenient. I could quickly see which ones had new posts. Reading the blogs only takes minutes. Following the links takes more minutes. Then even more as I went through the comments, and then the links to the commentor's blogs, then more links to other interesting places and blogs. It is enough to make one feel all bloggy.

I imagine RSS feeds are even more convenient and easy to amass even more blogs to check on and read and link from. What I need is not convenient and easy, but difficult and time consuming. I need a barrier, a hurdle. Over the past few posts, I've moved my blog bookmarks to this site (on the right hand side), vetting a few along the way. Now I have to click on each one to get to them. More work, more steps, and fewer blogs visited each time I fire up the computer. I don't feel like I'm missing much since I can catch up on the posts quickly.

Of course, I make an exception for a select few frequent visitors. :-)

Progress: Good; the end is near.