It's Raining Sticks and Old Ladies

Change of Address

2009-06-01T06:39:00.002-05:00

So in an effort to be a bit more visible (and better at the whole social networking thing), I've moved the party over to Wordpress. Via Wordpress, I'm mirroring to Livejournal and Dreamwidth.

I know. It's mad.

Sadly, for now, that means no more updates here at Blogspot. For the latest, come find me at dimlightarchive.com, or my mirrors: dimlightarchive.livejournal.com or dimlightarchive.dreamwidth.org.

2009-05-14T07:37:00.000-05:00

So it's still rejection city for the short stories I've got floating around at the moment. The good news is that these are consistently personalized, and include reasons why they weren't accepted. That's a good sign, and a useful one.

Two in a week might have, ah, sent me on a bit of a "let's watch the whole first disc of Coupling S2 in the hope that I will have a seizure and turn into Steven Moffat" binge, but all is well. Morale is back up, and while my schedule/workspace situation still isn't quite sorted, I am at least getting some words out some of the time.

Dread Mistress Chloie and I have been experimenting with prompts of late. Our most recent adventure is all about plotting, and learning some of the nuts and bolts that go into writing some of the more classic story lines. So far, the only hiccup is that the first of our endeavors in this vein turns out to be the kind of story that makes me think in stories much bigger than 5,000 words.

I spent the weekend brain-locked and in denial on this point, and then the beginning of the week learning to accept my lot and prewriting/world building. I got my first few hundred words down yesterday, and so far I'm really pleased with them. A fair bit of the concept is still reworking itself and solidifying in my head as I go.

Admittedly I'm a bit on edge about this. I hadn't really intended to go back to writing longer fiction before getting back into work on Dead Souls, but here I am. The good news is that it's an idea I've had for a little while, albeit in a wildly different form.

Frankly, I probably need the vacation from the write/submit/rejection/resubmit cycle I've been doing. Maybe this is what writing big things is for? To take a break from short story madness?

2009-04-30T14:49:00.002-05:00

It's been a little bit of a rejection party around here of late. I got three in as many weeks at the beginning of the month -- the most recent on the 21st -- and it took a few days to get back on the horse. I'm pleased to say I've got four stories and two poems out in the wild right now, looking for homes.

This month has been a challenge, though. My writing office at home has been in home improvement limbo because of seasonal concerns -- never refinish your floors if you can't open all the windows -- and budget constraints, and so for most of the winter I'd been writing in a nice cushy spot on the living room sofa. It worked quite well, what with the kitchen being right there (and therefore coffee or tea), nobody bothered me (4 AM is very quiet), etc.

All of that changed when my partner had surgery on the 17th. Apparently pain and mobility are issues that arise from things like abdominal surgery. His occupation of the couch has been complete and unyeilding.

My office is not quite finished.

If you've ever wondered, writing at 4 AM in one's bedroom whilst surrounded by happily sleeping dogs? Without coffee or tea? Not easy. Next to impossible, actually. My concentration and productivity have been shot for the past couple of weeks. It's a bit like writing Hell. I'm the first mate on the Failboat.

The good news is that the BF is feeling loads better, and is even making noises about moving back to the bedroom. I'm hoping, though, that after this weekend that will all be a moot point. I have Grand Designs for Saturday that involve a belt sander, and probably an electric kettle.

After that, all I'll need to worry myself about will be insubstantial matters like a desk. Or a chair.

Amazon's Rank

2009-04-13T12:23:00.003-05:00

I was hoping to write something specifically about what's been going on in my writing life, but it looks like the Amazon rank fiasco needs to come first.

And to think, I only just did politics the other day.

A lot of people -- and I mean a LOT OF PEOPLE -- are already saying incredible, useful things about the new wave of Amazon.com idiocy. Most of these folks are utterly brilliant and so complete that I can't begin to add to what they have to say. So here's a run-down in semi-reverse chronological order:

First, one journal's list of books affected. It includes educational books, YA books, biographies,

Amazon's very bad day over at Making Light, which is a really thoughtful, not-as-angry-as-I-am post about the situation.

Dear Author... talks about whether Amazon is using MetaData to filter

RM's really excellent "morning after" round-up

Copperbadge also gives good round-up/commentary. He follows up later with even more well-reasoned commentary.

Now, Amazon claims it's a glitch.

One reason I don't wholly buy the "glitch" defense in any serious way: This is the text that authors who had their ranks stripped received. Yes, it's a form note. However, what I'm mostly seeing from author blogs from those affected is that the response so far has been very slow, if there is any response at all.

Another reason to question the glitch hypothesis (or at least to question that it's a brand new problem) is this: some media has been affected since February.

The other reason is this: what comes up when you search for 'homosexuality' on Amazon as of yesterday.

Smart Bitches is staging a Googlebombing effort.

My personal opinion about the thing is this: Amazon has just been struck by a massive example of cascading fail. It's a problem any large organization will have, and it's a nasty mix of good intentions, large problems, systems working together in unexpected ways, and people with bias making tweaks to the system.

Our culture often codes LGBTQ content as somehow "more adult" than heterosexual content. In This Film Is Not Yet Rated, Kirby Dick demonstrates how this works in the film industry. News articles about so-called concerned parent organizations (usually code for social conservatives) trying to ban books tend to demonstrate how this happens in schools and libraries.

At a guess, Amazon's standing "adult" policy (which is fail on its own as censorship in general is a blunt instrument and never works as intended) got a bit of a nasty tweak of bias from someone or something somewhere, and this cascaded/snowballed via (ill-considered, bad-for-exchange) automated means. The mechanism for that snowball is that social coding, where things which are queer are somehow problematic or offensive/bad for children. Therefore, while it's possible that the net result is unintentional, the causes and conditions that allowed for it to happen are born of bias within the institution. The institution, in this case, being Amazon.

Edit to add: So Feministing has another interesting tidbit. Apparently #amazonfail may be the result of an algorithm that the company is trying to implement to shield customers from so-called offensive content. I call fuckery so hard right now. However, according to the same article, the customer service reps may not have any idea what it is they're talking about.

Cascade fail, people. Culture fail.

Also, some people are reporting that sales ranks are being returned to some of the books listed as stripped. We'll need to keep our eyes open on that.

--- end of edit ---

It's difficult for me to put much personal power behind a boycott as I already mostly do boycott Amazon, and only use them when using another source for an item is extremely cost prohibitive, overly difficult, or impossible. I started this back when they introduced Booksurge and started screwing over small presses. I continue because they have yet to really redeem themselves.

However, I have -- and encourage you -- to sign the petition going around, and to write Amazon and tell them why this sort of thing is offensive to you. Via RM, another form of contact if you like to write CEOs letters:

Jeffrey Bezos, CEO
AMAZON.COM
1200 12th Avenue South
Seattle, Washington 98144-2734
United States
Phone: 206-266-1000
Fax: 206-622-2405

In which things get political.

2009-04-09T12:29:00.003-05:00

A friend posted a locked entry on LiveJournal yesterday about the necessity of queer-friendly spirituality in a world where the deck is so powerfully stacked in favor of faiths that believe that orientations other than cisgendered heterosexuality are sinful and should be punished. He linked to an absolutely appalling NYT article about how queer men in Iraq are being murdered by their families and by anti-gay militants, and made an excellent (and, one should hope, obvious) point about how the message public, government, and religious entities send about groups like the LGBTQ community can propagate violence.

It was jarring, especially since this has been such a good week in the US (Iowa, Vermont) for marriage equality. In retrospect, it sort of feels like the lead-in for something I found today:

I had to watch this twice before I could do anything beyond drawing a speechless, nauseous blank. Rainbow coalitions? Deprivation of rights? I mean, fair play to you, National Organization for Marriage, for making it blindingly obvious what rights are being impinged upon. Specifically, your right not to treat other people as if they are human beings worthy of your full respect. Also, I commend you for not even bothering to hide your hate-mongering scare tactics under a bushel of rhetoric or lip service. That takes fortitude. Bravo.

Since we're being open with one another, perhaps it's only fair to point out that this feeling that you're experiencing, where the ground seems less firm beneath your feet is not what you think it is. That is not your rights being taken away. That's what it feels like to have your privilege as the cultural default challenged, and for others (who are entitled to exist and have rights, just like you) to succeed in standing up and demanding that they are given their due. It is what it feels like for the world as it is viewed in the eyes of the law to come just a little closer to the way the world actually is by recognizing the reality of life in these United States.

If you are a California doctor whose faith conflicts with her job if a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer person comes into your office, I have no sympathy for you. You would prefer to watch someone die than treat them because their beliefs differ from yours. How is that Christlike? The Christ that I'm familiar with helped and healed the sick without regard for their personal histories and beliefs, and it was by that good example that people followed him. You tarnish that good example. Shame on you.

If you're part of a New Jersey church group being punished for not supporting same-sex marriage, I'm curious about what it is you're doing since same-sex marriage isn't even legal in your state. Well, unless you're the owners of the Ocean Grove Campground, in which case it's obvious that you think that the law does not apply to you. Shame on you as well.

And as for you, helpless Massachusetts parent? I think that you (like your friends who want to see Intelligent Design taught in biology classes instead of religious studies, philosophy, or current events) have horribly misunderstood the role of public, secular education. You're well within your rights to secure a religious education for your child, or to take time at home to talk to your son about your beliefs. That is what parents do. In fact, it's probably quite healthy for your son to encounter multiple points of view because unless you seal him up in the cellar for the rest of his life, he will need to know how to maintain his personal integrity in a world where not everyone is the same.

Though, I suppose that's rather the problem, isn't it?

This isn't about points of view. This is about the real lives of real people that you would prefer to see extinguished, and about the real rights of those people to be protected and treated equally under secular, civil law.

Religious opposition cannot and must not ever determine the law in the United States.

The very right you're clinging to in order to prevent LGBTQ people from having any at all is the same right which allows you to believe and practice your faith without the fear and oppression that your Anabaptist and Puritan (and, in some cases, merely Protestant) forebears suffered in Europe. That you often disregard the fact that this right applies to others when they believe something you don't (or, in fact, choose not to take up a faith at all) is not only disingenuous. It is morally reprehensible, and it is vile.

There is a storm coming, but it isn't the storm that you think. It is people who are actually decent, freedom-loving (yes, I said that aloud and without irony), and engaged in civil discourse standing up against fabrications and rampant fear-mongering. It is resistance to the idea that your preference for a legal system that mirrors your personal religious beliefs matters more than someone else's life.

I'll refrain from making the obvious point about extremist groups who have a taste for that kind of behavior, but suffice to say that some of them have funny ideas about airline travel, women's attire, and we have been shooting at them since 2001.

In which name-dropping is had.

2009-03-29T12:26:00.004-05:00

Everything that can be out is out. I haven't heard back from anybody, but this is the sort of morning that I wake up in such a fine, fine mood that I'm not sure I'm too worried.

I think I'm abandoning the pig story for now. It isn't working for me, I don't think I'm writing in the right direction for that anthology, and three brilliant markets that I do want to write for have popped up in the last four days. I've taken it as a sign, dropped my few thousand words off into my "unfinished things that could be brilliant eventually" folder, and moved on.

Had a hilarious conversation a few days ago with John C. Hay about an idea he had, and how it really needs to be a screenplay. With a terrible, terrible sequel. Have refused outright to help him, which probably means I'll be the first one he calls if this thing ever comes up on his list. Gods help me.

Oh, and I got to meet Catherynne M. Valente. I need to blog this, but have failed utterly to plug my camera in to pull photos from the Palimpsest shindig.

Right. Off to find trousers for a bit of day job action, and then who knows what this afternoon. Geekery afoot this evening.

Sleep is the brother of Death. Also, tardiness.

2009-03-20T06:31:00.002-05:00

It seems, after a couple of days of waking up MUCH later than I ought to, that I am turning my alarm off in my sleep. Argh.

Now, in fairness, this has been a shit week for trying to be up at 6 AM. My mom's birthday was Wednesday, I've been up late a few nights this week being completely unwell with allergies, etc. But still. Daddy needs his work time.

All of this aside, I'm feeling pretty organized. I knocked that AC call out of the damn park over lunch, and I'll be submitting a couple of pieces of fiction to two different markets in the next 48 hours, pretty much. That means that as of now next week is may pretty much be all about the pig story, the recreational stuff, and scouting new markets for April. Good, good times.

And now shower, clothes, garbage day. Then work. Then geekery of the tabletop gaming variety. My tiefling, let me show you it.

My Spoon...

2009-03-18T12:22:00.000-05:00

..is starting to feel a little bit more like a regular-sized spoon.

All of my AC calls for National Poetry Month are submitted. I'm more or less pleased with them overall, though I tend to regard AC as the office work of my writing life. I enjoy it, but it's not as fulfilling as writing fiction. My understanding is that this is pretty much normal. Still, it's good to be able to write something and be paid for it.

They're also doing a lot of calls for podcast-type media of late, so I've been considering a mic and playing around with Audacity, especially now that I've got the house to myself in the early evening four days a week.

Fiction writing continues apace. I've got until Friday to polish something I want to send out this weekend. My submission circle piece has two sets of eyes on it at the moment, so it'll probably be ready to go out next week. I gave myself a day to play with the unsalable stuff just to keep things feeling fresh and my brain limber. The craziness levels are easing off a little. I feel good.

The next week, as far as I can tell, will be a four project week:

- AC call about something I'd like to know more about. Angling, if you'll believe it.
- Retool the pig story, finish it, start prepping it for submission. Tentative personal deadline: March 31.
- Give myself some time with the recreational stuff. I've been very work, work, work this past week. Tentative personal deadline: March 27th.
- Pick a handful of interesting markets for the sub circle meet on April 2.

Technically there's a fifth, but I'm not keen to talk about it until it's more tangible instead of just being a good idea.

Right. Off to do lunch things with the rest of my lunch hour.

Madness!

2009-03-09T12:08:00.002-05:00

So I'm feeling ever so slightly like my spoon is too big. It's a good sort of too big, though.

I'm writing some articles about National Poetry Month, I'm presenting at a conference on Friday, and I've got three pieces of fiction in progress for submission (one to a magazine market, two to antho markets, no idea if they'll sell). I also got an e-mail today from an editor for a magazine I've been anxious to hear back from, so that's exciting.

I keep peeking over at The Book, too, though going back to it this week would be a recipe for disaster on all counts. It's not ready, I'm not ready, and my workload is definitely not ready.

Chloie and I spent last Thursday evening planning ~~World Domination~~ a submission circle/pact. I've got a few hundred words down on our first project, but need a few hundred more before this coming Thursday. If I fail, Chloie is entitled to jab me with sharp sticks. Between this and the articles (two of which are also due Thursday), my life is going to be an adventure, especially because I lost an hour Sunday and am completely wiped out.

Please send coffee.

Brothersister, can you spare a dime to save a girl with wheels?

2009-03-06T05:42:00.001-06:00

http://coilhouse.net/2009/03/04/performercyclist-hollis-hawthorne-needs-our-help/

From Warren Ellis' blog:

performer Hollis Hawthorne got hit-and-run by a car in India, and is now in a coma in a tiny rural hospital with a serious brain stem injury. Good news: one of the best hospitals in the world has agreed to treat her for nothing. Bad news: said hospital is in the USA, and it’s apparently going to cost USD $150,000 to airlift her out of India. And the hospital won’t cover that. Basically, the longer it takes to move her, the odds of her dying in a bed in a rat- and ant-infested Indian hospital increase.

Spread the word, yeah?

getting the love, sharing the love

2009-02-14T13:31:00.002-06:00

My short (and I mean short) story "When Aja..." posts to Thaumatrope today. Be sure to check it out!

If you're less inclined to fiction and more interested in my hygiene habits, I've also reviewed Axe Skin Contact Hydrating Shower Gel over at Associated Content.

All of which is to say that today is one hell of a day to be a guy who writes sex, and then gives everyone more information than they probably wanted about something he does when he's naked.

This is why writers drink.

2009-02-09T12:10:00.000-06:00

You know, I didn't realize until I started playing Fallout 3 just how many bottle caps I have around the house. Seriously. They're everywhere. I suspect this has a fair bit to do with the fact that I have trouble throwing them away. There's something charming about a metal bottle cap.

Maybe I need a big glass fishbowl or something to collect them in.

In other, less random news, today is Day of the Follow Up Query Letter.

It's not that I fear rejection quite so much as I fear being crushed, or possibly pointed and laughed at. I can take rejection. What I fear is being told by someone credible that I'm wasting my time. Any query puts me into contact with someone potentially credible who could not only decide I'm rubbish, and to never, ever publish me, but to tell his or her friends to do the same.

Again, this is why writers drink.

Good writing news:
- Excellent progress on a story, though I may have to drop a subplot in order to keep it under the limit for the antho I want to submit to.
- The insane-o-schedule (up at 4 AM to write) has yet to kill me.
- A published friend gave me a useful critique on a work in progress.

And, since I insist on being a raging fanboy about this several days after the fact, James Moran liked my cake.

Buy this book, and while you're at it, pass the caffeine.

2009-01-22T12:38:00.003-06:00

Sam Starbuck, who is a) incredibly nice, b) Internet famous, and c) one hell of a writer has just published a pocket paperback called Other People Can Smell You: An Ex-Academic's Guide To Surviving Higher Education. Having read it, I can tell you that this man speaks excellent good sense, and that you should buy copies for anyone in your life who'll be making the transition to university soon. You can find his post about it here, which includes photos for scale of the finished product, a link to the sale page, and info on where you can read it in .PDF format.

...

One thing I learned in 2008 was that while setting time aside each day to write boosts my productivity and makes me better at what I do, it's hard to find the right time of day to do it. For the bulk of the year, that 'right time' was 7-9 PM. Which, from a lot of angles, doesn't seem so bad until the cracks start forming in your social/recreational/family life.

So I fiddled with it. I tried to do things later, or earlier. I tried writing at lunch, but my work can be erratic and I can't always guarantee that time will be there for me when I want it.

So, last week, I changed my schedule. Not my writing schedule, but my ENTIRE schedule. I started going to bed early (between 9-11 PM) and set my alarm for 4 AM.

Yes, you read that correctly.

The brilliant thing about 4 AM is that nobody I'm likely to want to talk to (except for my friends in Europe and Oceania) is likely to be conscious. The television is pretty universally bad. Most of the distracting Internet things in my life have gone still around that time of night. And yes, night, because even at midsummer, a clear 4 AM sky is still black and full of stars.

In practice, it looks something like this:

4:00 AM - Alarm goes off, snooze button is struck.
4:15 AM - Alarm goes off, snooze button is struck.
4:30 AM - Alarm goes off, I roll out of bed in search of tea. Or coffee. Or a handy electrical socket. Once acquired, I sit down and check e-mail, or old links from the night before, or whatever I can find that's shiny enough to wake up to.
5:00 AM to 7:00 AM - Writing.
7:00 AM to 7:40 AM - Get ready for work, send the dogs downstairs, etc.
8:00 AM to 5:00 PM - Work, preferably with a lunch in there somewhere.
5:20 PM to 9:00 PM - WHATEVER I WANT.
any time between 9:00 PM and 11:00 PM - Fall over somewhere soft and dark, probably with/under dogs. Sleep the sleep of the just.

It looks slightly less insane in GMT (roll out of bed at 10:30, write until 1, roll into work around 2, etc.), and I'm still having to learn which times of day are actually which, and I know that Dragon*Con is going to make this whole damn thing fall apart, but hey.

Probably the most amusing part about this whole thing for me is the way in which my early rising has already been mistaken for virtue. "Wow, that's so smart! I could never do that..."

Yeah, no. Go back to the bit where I'm writing 7-9 PM for a year, and where my partner and I both work full-time. Try adding up how many hours in the past year I have not seen him because I've lost track of time and written until 11 PM, or had to not do something with him because of my writing, or not been able to say goodnight to him because he's all unconscious when I come stumbling out of my office like a zombie...

I'm not made of wood, people. Let's leave it at that.

Conversations I've Had With My Dog

2009-01-16T18:01:00.002-06:00

"Gwen, why are you licking my gloves? Is it because they smell like little lambs? Not everything that smells like little lambs is for eating. Sometimes little lambs are for giving us wool, or milk, or just being little lambs out in a field until they're old enough to make more little lambs. But yeah, other than that, little lambs are freaking delicious, just like geese. Except, um, little lambs are less likely to down your plane and force you to crash land in a river."

That's the nice thing about dogs. They can't actually call you crazy. Following this up with a list of badly formed questions ("So when did you stop being a Communist?" "Baby, I never stopped being a Communist!") with Joe probably isn't helping things.

I've had a bit of a blitz of articles go up over at Associated Content since mid-December, but was incredibly sick, followed by incredibly busy, and haven't really had a chance to share links. So! Here they are:

Ten Resolutions for Russell T. Davies for 2009: Straight from the Department of Professional Suicide, fledgling writer decides to get all witty at the guy who's been writing/running his favorite shows for about three years. Two words: Ice Warriors. One more: Fanservice.

Book Review: The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines: I met Jim via a mutual friend, and I've been a big fan of his books since reading Goblin Quest a couple of years back. He's got a great talent for building coherent worlds, and for skewering assumptions about fantasy without devaluing it. Trust me when I say that while I'm not the sort of guy who reads books about princesses, I knew right away that I should read Jim's.

Product Review: Axe Armor 2-in-1 Shampoo and Conditioner with Active Zinc: Oddly, a review I did on my own steam rather than as a call for content. As of this writing I have not been bombarded by nubile young women. This comes as something of a relief as (I assume) it's kind of hard to get any work done under those circumstances.

Lesson Plan: Get To Know A President: One of the things I like about AC is that sometimes I pick a call that requires me to learn something. In this case, it was figuring out how to write a formal lesson plan that might be intelligible to another human being. So yes, hello new skill. Perhaps I will get to use you in the future.

In other writing news, I had a rough start to the year but am steadily getting back on the horse. I've been experimenting with my daily schedule a little, trying to see if I could maybe bump my two hours' work to the morning rather than the evening. The only obvious problem is that starting the day a couple of hours early makes the afternoon drag. My instincts tell me it's time to go home sometime around 3 PM, my stomach thinks it's lunch around 10 AM, and I've had to deploy the caffeine at odd times. Still, if it works, it'll give me more time with Joe, and/or Fallout 3.

So this is the new year.

2009-01-05T07:35:00.000-06:00

And I don't feel any different.

2009 rang itself in mostly without my help. That's probably for the best since I spent a good deal of the days before and after being phenomenally, epically ill. I seem to remember something about clear soda, a Moral Orel marathon on [adult swim], and our neighbors blowing something up. I've got a mind to have some kind of shindig later this month just to make things official. In any case, here I am, baffled at the sheer Januaryness springing up around me.

So far, I can say that there are good things on the horizon, and not just because I'm able to consume solids. Some little things have sold, some other things are out in submission limbo waiting to be accepted or not. It's a good start.

Speaking of good starts, if you've got a little bit of extra money after the holidays, get yourself a little something from Apex Book Company. They're a small press, but they publish some absolutely cracking science fiction and fantasy. Right now they're doing a drive to raise $2500 to offset expenses in the face of the economic downturn. Check them out, pick up a couple of books or a magazine, and sleep well knowing you've done your part to keep the industry nice and weird.

Milestone: Fiction

2008-12-20T08:01:00.002-06:00

I just sold my first piece of fiction.

Sweet barking cheese.

The Home Stretch

2008-12-19T06:59:00.000-06:00

Another day, another Associated Content article. This time it's a review of H&R Block's online tax preparation options. Again, not quite seasonal, but hopefully useful to someone in the longer term.

So today is Crunch Day, which means I'll spend about 12 hours or so (probably but not necessarily with a lunch) doing dayjobby things before coming home and (presumably) falling over. I'm looking forward to that bit, because it'll mean that it's nearly the weekend, give or take a few hours on Saturday or Sunday to wrap things up.

Because I'm a bit perverse, and because I've been feeling fatigued and ill, I gave myself Wednesday night off. It turned out to be exactly what I needed, as was last night's social call (which basically amounted to another night off). Tonight's up in the air in that if I feel up to writing, I am allowed to write whatever I like for as long as I like.

I can get away with all of this because tomorrow? Well, tomorrow I am locking myself up somewhere for eight hours and scribbling my little heart out in an effort to catch up properly. Possibly somewhere with nice coffee if I've got enough pocket change to swing it.

Right. I'm off to prepare myself for the masses. Wish me luck.

Productivity in the face of madness

2008-12-17T07:12:00.000-06:00

Survived yesterday, possibly by simultaneously believing it was both Tuesday and Wednesday at the same time. This allowed me to get a great many Tuesday-critical things done, but with the morale that comes of being that much closer to the weekend. However, now that it is actually Wednesday, I feel a little cheated. I don't get a lunch hour today either -- the hazards of volunteerism -- so any productivity today is going to have to happen in the evening.

On the subject of productivity, though, I managed to hammer out a short how-to on repairing one's own window screens yesterday at lunch. If you're interested in that kind of thing, you can check it out here.

That brings the list down to:
- Two more articles due to AC soon (I forgot one when I made the list yesterday)
- Professional article
- Editing (if he needs me to make another pass)
- Poetry submission
- Story that is in its difficult phase

If I'm honest, only that second one has to happen this week, but crunch and long days for the rest of the week (possibly excluding tonight and oh hey, I could work on my story tonight if nothing else time sensitive comes up), make me very nearly homesick for a day spent chained to a laptop over coffee.

At least the boyfriend seems to be feeling better. Oh, and a friend sent me a box of mangoes. And I've got a short week next week...

This is not the week.

2008-12-16T07:37:00.000-06:00

The list:

- Two for-pay (well, one confirmed for-pay and another presumably, hopefully for-pay) articles due this week, one on Wednesday. The one due on Wednesday requires a spline roller.
- One retooled version of information I wrote about in another for-pay article (which was published under an exclusive license, so I can't just send it in as-is), this time for a professional journal pertaining to my day job, due to my boss freaking ASAP.
- Any additional editing necessary for a friend's 20 page piece.
- That poetry submission? From months ago? Still languishing because I feel I need to send an odd number of pieces greater than one and no less than five.
- The end of the story that ate my year is nigh. I am, in theory, about 5,000 good words away. 5,000 emotionally devastating "I do not want to engage with this material" words away.

Also:
- It is crunch week at my job.
- My Sunday night game time with the guys got rescheduled to Thursday.
- I definitely work 8 AM to 8 PM on Friday.
- The boyfriend is sick.

To put it another way, I am very possibly about to be the craziest man in my pants. HOWEVER! Not all is doom and gloom.

Early last month, I happened to be in a florist's shop buying flowers to throw into a lake, and happened to notice a sprig of something that looked like it had grown out by Chernobyl.

"What is that?" I asked, fascinated.

The florist held up a sprig. "Curly willow. Here, take a piece and put it in water. It'll sprout."

So I did. I put that bad boy in a paper cup and carried it around with me all day while I worked on stuff over coffee downtown. When I got home, it lived on my desk until I realized that would probably be the fast track to death for the poor, shattered thing. It moved to the microwave.

Today, I discovered that it was outgrowing that spot. After some deliberation, I decided that the best combination of favorable temperature and sunlight was the back of our toilet.

The best part? That is the same paper cup it started in.

Miracle.

More AC, shameless self-promotion, and today's charming internet thing x2.

2008-12-14T12:22:00.000-06:00

I've sold another AC article, this one about eco-friendly money saving tips. If you're interested in that sort of thing, you can check it out here.

This is turning into shameless self-promotion weekend. As you've probably noticed on your left I've added links to Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. I tweet a fair bit, so if you're looking for laughs in 140 characters or less, I'm your man. The Facebook entry is still under construction more or less. The MySpace needs more regular attention. Suffice to say I'm probably going to start utilizing it all a bit more.

It's funny, though, the things you find on the web when you're only just sort of looking around. Today's finest example would probably have to be HotAmishChick on Twitter. I'm not sure if tweeting in character is a new phenomenon (I'm mutually following both the Joker and Darth Vader right now), but I think there's definitely a lot to be said for it as a performance art form.

The other thing that's got me laughing today is over at Paul Cornell's blog. In his Twelve Blogs of Christmas, we've been introduced to The Adventures of the Amazing Scale Guy, who "does whatever a Scale Guy does. But he’s the best at what he does. And what he does is demonstrate relative size..." I started following his blog because I'm a massive fanboy, but even if you've got no interest whatsoever in comics or Doctor Who, you'll probably get a chuckle out of some of his latest offerings.

Five Tips for Transgender Students Seeking Campus Housing

2008-12-11T21:03:00.000-06:00

I've just published an article on Associated Content about things transgender students can do to help secure safe and comfortable housing on college campuses. If you're interested in that sort of thing, you can check it out here.

Beginnings, endings, and other things ending in -ing. Or not.

2008-12-08T07:12:00.000-06:00

Last night was my last official Chloie night. Well, the last night of her noveling workshop, at least.

I'm a little surprised at the sense of loss I'm feeling this morning. I mean, it's not like the end of the workshop means the end of our working or social relationships. It's just sad when brilliant things end.

In retrospect, 2008 has been kind to me. I've learned to give myself permission to treat my writing like a job (albeit a job I really enjoy), I've met my goals in terms of publication (i.e. I now have a handful of credits to my name and have started submitting a little more broadly), and I'm getting more comfortable approaching the industry in general. I also learned that I shouldn't underestimate the power of inertia. I expect that last bit will become easier to manage over time, but chances are good that it'll always be a challenge.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't regret the fact that I won't be leaving 2008 with a finished, salable book. For a guy who's written 50k in a month more than once, that's a bit of a kick in the pants. The funny thing was that it isn't a matter of output, but focus. I write a lot in a lot of directions if I don't keep a rein on things.

This year, I made the mistake of trying to write two book-sized things in a sea of articles, short stories, and poetry. If I didn't have to work a day job, that might actually be manageable, which ultimately is encouraging. Therefore, the rest of 2008 is basically dedicated to trying to sort the mess into more organized piles, and 2009 will be about learning to focus, prioritize, and set attainable goals. The left hemisphere of my brain (which according to various Internet quizzes is vestigial at best) is very excited about this, and hopes it will involve Excel and a filing cabinet.

Actually, I do kind of need a filing cabinet.

Unrelated aside: if you want to read all manner of unrelated effluvia, and use Twitter, you can find my feed here.

For best results, use tape.

2008-11-17T12:14:00.000-06:00

One thing I'm not sure I'll ever get used to is that feeling of "Oh shit, what do I say now?" that comes with submitting a piece for publication.

I could say that I'm unnerved by the knowledge that my cover letter/e-mail is probably that editor's first and only impression of me, and that I'm terrified that somehow my "Please consider my short story 'Blah' for publication in Super-Duper Awesome Digest" will be laughable or offensive. I consistently worry (in spite of my efforts to check/ask) that the editor I address the letter to is the wrong person.

Whenever I submit something to a Real Live Market, I tend to grab the nearest supportive person and panic at them for about thirty minutes or so. Today's victim is more published than I am, and an avid consumer of web comics.

He sent me this.

"I can't even laugh at that," I wrote back. And I couldn't, because it's too close to the truth.

Fortunately, he knows me well enough to send this as a follow-up.

Nothing eases the anxiety associated with trying to sell a story quite like a sudden and paralyzing fear of major household appliances, or at least people who disregard warning labels on things with powerful robotic arms.

Article about Prop 8 Protests

2008-11-13T12:52:00.001-06:00

I've just published a short article about protests in response to the passage of Proposition 8, including information about national protests taking place on November 15th. You can read it here.

Vote

2008-11-04T12:07:00.001-06:00

A proper update, in which things happen.

2008-11-01T12:29:00.000-05:00

So on Thursday I attended an enormous Obama rally and covered the event for Associated Content. You can find that article here. It's the first piece of content that I've produced that could be accused of being newsworthy, and that feels weird beyond words. Also, incredible beyond words. Witnessing history kicked my ass.

The only down-side is that the timing meant I lost a whole writing day in a deadline-rich zone, and thus missed a submission deadline on a salable short story. This is disappointing to say the least, and I'm sort of kicking myself because earlier in the month I was procrastinating on it, saying, "Oh, I'll just finish it up in those last two weeks."

Apparently, no. No I will not.

Still, this means I have a mostly (but not entirely) finished piece I can submit later. And yes, that plus five dollars will net me a cafe mocha.

Other sources of frustration include trying and failing to find an editor's name for another submission, and being close to finished with something that's been competing with Dead Souls since January. I'm in the home stretch with that, and really only need about 10k good words to finish it up.

Incidentally, it amuses me that there's such a thing as "only 10k" in my life now.

Other irons in the fire:
- AC, obviously. I'd like to do about one call or article per week, mainly because it's (potentially) paying work.
- I'm participating in a competitive essay thing called LJ Idol until I'm a) eliminated, or b) for about six months, whichever comes first.
- Anything that catches my eye on Duotrope.
- Possible collaborative project (not-paying) at some point, pending co-writer.

And now, to catch up on e-mail.

Deadlines

2008-10-22T07:21:00.000-05:00

That's what this week is about. Last night was an Associated Content deadline that crept up after a long weekend of houseguests and insanity. Today is a deadline for something a little more recreational, but I've given my word and that's that. My self-imposed deadline for a salable short story just whizzed by -- does anyone remember last week? what happened? -- but the actual call for submissions gives me a few more days.

Yeah. So this is what the transition to jobbing writer might look like. It's not half bad, but I wouldn't say no to a nap right about now.

Still not a proper update...

2008-10-16T17:13:00.000-05:00

...but I feel like I need to post this because I've just had an important milestone.

I've just made my first $4 as a writer. Like, for real. Four actual dollars.

Right. As you were.

Public Service Announcement

2008-10-10T07:05:00.000-05:00

I know I've promised a real update, and it's coming, but this is more important.

A close friend of a friend, Soren "Scraps" DeSelby, is currently in hospital after having suffered a hemorrhagic stroke. He's conscious, and apparently lucid, but he's communicating incompletely (according to my friend, he's "communicating with people through eye motions, song and gesture") and his movement is significantly impaired. As of now, I'm told his prognosis is unclear.

Now, I've never met the man, but by all accounts he's a brilliant human being, stubborn as hell, and a hard-working freelancer. He's also, like many people who work in the arts here in the United States, uninsured.

He's been in the ICU since Monday of this week. To give you an idea, a day in ICU can start at well over $1000/day and run into the mid-to-upper thousands depending on the equipment necessary. So in addition to being terrifying for him and his loved ones, this is a huge financial blow for someone who works as a freelance copy editor.

I've always felt that, whenever possible, the community should look after its own. This is, I think, one of those times. If you've got a couple of minutes and a little bit of change, there's information over at Making Light on how to assist.

Free Shiny Thing. Inquire Within.

2008-10-08T20:50:00.000-05:00

A fellow novelling workshopper sent me a note to say that Noah Lukeman -- who is kind of a big deal as literary agents go -- has written a short (76 page) book on writing query letters, and is giving it away for free in digital format on Amazon. You can find it here.

Now, okay. I do not have a great deal of love for Amazon, and would encourage everyone to check out the Controversies section on their Wikipedia entry, which details in brief they way they aim to fuck over the small press community, abuse patent law, and oppose trade unions. I avoid using them whenever possible, and encourage others to do the same. That being said, this is for the most part a guilt-minimal moment. You log in, download Lukeman's book as a .PDF, and do whatever you like with it after that. Amazon gets none of your money, and Lukeman (presumably) gets the satisfaction of knowing people are potentially benefiting from his work.

So yeah. Go ye forth and grab the shiny.

Also, I will be posting a proper update soon, since I've had Chloie time and am elbow-deep in (potentially) paying work. Mmm. Money for words.

Today was a good day.

2008-09-17T00:15:00.000-05:00

In spite of an unscheduled nap and a wrecked schedule, today has been a good day for writing. I'm nearly up to 2k on the salable short story, got some work done on the recreational book-sized project, and chatted a little bit about process on Dead Souls.

I think I'm allowed to go to bed now.

In lieu of something useful...

2008-09-15T17:26:00.000-05:00

...I bring you my Twitter page. Yes, now you can follow along at home while I make inane Internet chatter.

Tweet, tweet.

a short rant on disruption

2008-09-14T20:45:00.000-05:00

I'm going to come right out here and say it: the last couple of months have not been kind.

We had a house guest for five weeks in July/August just in time for my office to develop a mold problem. Work ramped up hard in early August, meaning 60-70 hour weeks. And then, in my infinite wisdom, I went to Dragon*Con. (I refuse to apologize for this last bit because I absolutely needed it on a lot of different levels.)

The net result is that my writing schedule has gone pretty much to shit. My projects are in disarray, I'm not writing out of my office, and while I mostly write on a laptop (meaning I can theoretically work anywhere), the boyfriend is unimpressed when I tell him to get out of the bedroom and stop talking to me about his new land vehicle for Spore while I'm hammering out a few thousand words on a short story.

So here's the state of things:

Dead Souls hasn't seen any solid action since work went mad at me. I'm going to plea 60-70 hour weeks and recuperation on this. The silver lining here is that I've had a chance to talk about it in general terms with some pretty incredible people, so my interest level and enthusiasm are high.

Novel-sized recreational project is in a similar state. I'm experiencing a bit of dread with it, actually, because while I'm 21/32nds of the way through it, some of it has generated enough wank that my fear of failure and I are having long conversations over tea. I think it's trying out for a spot as our follow-up house guest. Me, I'd like it to fuck right off.

Salable short story is in the embryonic stages where I have a title and a name and a couple of scenes in my head which may or may not work. My deadline for this is October 15, which is before the publisher's reading period ends. If I'm exceptionally clever, I'll write two stories for these folks, for two different calls, and get positive attention.

Recreational short story happened unexpectedly last week, and will require a trip to the comic book store. I know. It sounds awful. No deadline on this.

I've also got another salable short story packed away in the virtual peanuts after (in retrospect, a pretty damn fair) rejection, waiting for a new once-over and some polish before I fire it at someone else. Anyone know who's buying stories about vengeful cannibal housewives?

But yeah. I need to get back to a solid schedule, and I damn well need my fucking office back. Seriously.

The Most Troublesome Book Ever Worth Writing

2008-07-12T12:58:00.000-05:00

Today is Dead Souls day. I'm holed up in a coffeehouse with a bottomless cup and a stomach ache because the food here always fails to agree with me 100%. I've got an iPod full of all of the Ike Reilly and Ok Go I own (which is about 6 hours worth), and I'm not budging until they close this place down.

My book and I totally love each other today. The words are coming, the protagonist is virtually audible, and I feel good about the story.

Friends, it has been Hell getting here.

Since January (well, December, technically), I have learned a few things about myself, and my writing:

- I am bad at putting things away and picking them up again. I had this idea kicking around late last year, but had to hold off on writing it until February. In the interim I picked up a few other things, one of which is book-length in its own right. I'm a word whore, and a little bit of a hedonist where my writing is concerned. Given a choice, I pick the instant pleasure option. (Sorry about the Little Mermaid clip. It was that or a bunch of sex from Queer as Folk, and while I'm all in favor of hot man-on-man action, I recognize that not all of my readers are entirely prepared for random gay threesomes to the tune of Rufus Wainwright.)

- Data loss sucks, and I should be more virtuous about backing up. With OS failures, jump drive damage, brazenly deleting things I thought I had backed up, and any number of little hiccups here and there, I've toyed with the idea of the book being cursed. On the other hand, there's a certain pleasure in returning to the old notes that I've unearthed, and writing "high speed trash." The respectable draft was nowhere close to being this fun to write. Make no mistake, I'm playing catch-up, and I've been doing exactly what Chloie told me NOT to do (starting over), but I've always liked to believe I'm the sort of guy who can break the rules and get away with it.

- I like writing dirty stories/books. I worry this is going to damage my publication prospects, but I was already writing a Big Gay Vampire Book. I'm thinking some "fierce BJ action" (as a friend on the East Coast put it this morning) isn't going to do me any harm, though it might make me consider my first reader pool a little more carefully. Do I want my boyfriend reading this? Will it get me a spanking? Ah well, there go my chances of ever writing for Doctor Who...

But yes. I think I'm going to pick out some sort of cake or muffin or scone action (purely medicinal, you know, to help with the omelet sandwich and bananana that's fighting it's way through), put a few more coins in my parking meter, and keep rocking this manuscript.

The Book is Dead, Long Live The Book

2008-06-10T19:38:00.000-05:00

So Dead Souls and I have been having some terrible conversations of late. Steven and David's relationship, Eli's monstrous nature, my total inability to learn to freaking walk before I run, etc. have all culminated in a giant trainwreck that seemed surmountable until today.

Today, my desktop PC decided it didn't want to start anymore.

Now, I'm not quite superstitious enough to declare my book, as it stands, cursed. However, I'm smart enough to know when it's time to say "Okay. New beginning time."

Today I'm spending about 6-7 hours at the library rebuilding my characters. The best thing that's come out of this is a new face to the vampire hunters (the Bantam family), more about Steven and David's family, a stronger sense of how things need to move, begin, and end, etc. This is good.

The bad is that my rough draft "deadline" is July 13th. It doesn't have to be a complete draft -- not submission ready -- but I need the whole framework of the book. Now, I've written 50k+ in a month before, and that's a killer. OTOH, if I aim for a minimum of 10-20 manuscript pages/week, that'll probably be enough to start with before I start leaving it in front of readers and asking for feedback.

But yeah, I'm in trouble for effectively starting over, but am under instructions not to quit under threat of beating via Chloie, who just pointed her pen at me in a threatening manner.

Hullo, Chloie. ;)

2008-05-16T09:41:00.001-05:00

I think it's really quite crucial for me to point out that I am not dead. Well, at least not that I know of. If I am dead, the breakfast sandwich and grapefruit juice I've just crammed down into my gullet are going to be a real issue later.

The moral of the story here, children, is to stick with lager if you haven't checked your vital signs.

Dead Souls, on the other hand, has gone hurtling back into the prewriting place, in part because Eli's being a tricky bastard. Ordinarily I don't have a problem with vampires being monsters -- that's like complaining that mice are rodents, or that milk might just be a bit too dairy -- but some of the assumptions I'd made about character interactions have kind of gone to hell, and I'm back at square...well, more like three than one, really, but still. I would like to be at square finished-with-sold-manuscript-and-bottle-of-good-wine.

But yes. Not dead. Still working. Chloie gave me a good pummeling. Is good.

2008-04-15T02:37:00.000-05:00

"Now turn the knife counterclockwise."

- Daria, "The Road Worrier"

Well, I've just finished re-writing my opening scene. By that, I mean I've rewritten a scene that originally occurred off-camera and in the past, but today I decided we really needed to see it. I wrote it one way at lunch, hated it, and wrote it another way just now.

It's really going to break my heart doing what I'm about to do to poor David and Steven. They really are lovely, and Eli's a terrible bastard, and oh, my heart breaks.

Yeah, I'm clearly a hopeless romantic under it all. Somewhere.

2008-04-14T09:18:00.000-05:00

"Yeah, I came first in jiggery pokery, what about you?"

- Ninth Doctor, "End of The World"

So I've mostly recovered from a terrible, grueling bout of space plague, and am mostly myself again.

Exciting news: I will, barring massive disaster, be going to Dragon*Con this year. Probably mostly by myself, but I'll be sharing a room/floor with some new and interesting long-distance friends.

While the initial motivation in going was all about the guest list, I'm looking at some of the tracks and thinking that I could meet some folks, exchange cards, get some networking going on. I'll feel a bit of a twit doing it without any solid publication credits under my belt, but hell. It's something.

Other stuff: Last night was a Chloie night, which was a little bit hard. I'm struggling with some book stuff right now, and didn't write when I was sick because I couldn't concentrate through the not-breathing and having a fever bits. I'm getting into the real writing of the thing this month, at least in theory, and things seem very big and sort of scary.

Which, of course, is nonsense. I've written 50-70k manuscripts in a month before. I've just never written them with the intent to sell, and feel a lot of pressure not to suck.

By all accounts, I do not suck. Well, not in that sense at least.

But yeah. Writing is theoretically well underway. In practice, I need a jump start because I've been avoiding the book in favor of recreational writing because I've built it into something scary.

Tonight, I get my shit together.

2008-04-07T08:40:00.000-05:00

"In between molecules of Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide."

-- Weezer, "Only In Dreams"

I've been made of massive fail lately. The book and I aren't talking as much as I'd like, I've had two or three flavors of some monster alien malady keeping me down for most of the end of March, and got hit out of nowhere with a major crisis of personal identity/worth. I understand that none of this is particularly special, or distinctive, but fuck it. I'm whiny and I haven't written -- REALLY written -- in over a week.

This coming Sunday is a Chloie Sunday, and that might help things a bit, though my meager word count makes me feel guilty and unsure, and the urge to go in and fake and bluster is intense.

Damn it.

2008-03-20T10:43:00.000-05:00

"Hi. Any time you feel like talking sense..."

- PC Andy, Torchwood

My friends, if you speak to them, will tell you I'm pretty big into Torchwood and the new Doctor Who. I know, I know. I'm a geek.

Well, through avenues too serpentine to really go into, I happened to exchange an e-mail with Tom Price this week. As in PC Andy Davidson Tom Price.

I'm sorry, but how cool is that? Shares in awesome around here just went way up.

2008-03-15T20:47:00.000-05:00

My mother never warned me about guys with piercings, tattoos, or kinks.

- Dan Savage

Good lord. The month's half over. How is the month half over? I feel like I haven't got anything done this week.

Weather's been crazy, work's been insane, and household nonsense all feels bigger than I feel like I can deal with. Bleh. I'm sort of trying to take today ff, but what I'd really like to do is go out to the coffee house, buy a bottomless cup, and write in public.

Guess that's an action plan, then.

Two other things:

I've just had the extreme displeasure of seeing a commercial for BabyFirstTV, a subscription television network intended for infants. It kind of makes me want to burn something down.
I finished my vocal solo tour on Rock Band today. I got 5 stars on "Run to the Hills" by using my choral singing voice. Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up. I'm now in the 3000 range on the leaderboards. This is probably why I'm surprised it's the 15th.

2008-03-07T14:15:00.000-06:00

"M&M's might melt in your mouth, not in your hand, but I'd advise against keeping them in your pockets."

They're also not a breakfast food. Voice of experience. I did, however, have two opportunities to eat frosting today, and one of those opportunities included decorative work that looked like an orange sea anemone.

Sugary win is mine.

The university meat lab wrote back and said:

"Sorry, but no, our inspectors will not allow us to sell the blood
because we do not have a HAACP plan for this. Have you tried [local meat operation] in [nearby smaller town]? They may sell blood. Good luck."

I thanked them, and then I Googled. Turns out, an "HAACP plan" is actually an HACCP plan: Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points. In short, it means they don't handle blood in ways that ensure that it's safe to eat. Seems pretty reasonable to me. I am sort of curious about their handling processes overall, though, and how they dispose of the blood they're not using. Is it collected? Poured down a drain? Used to feed giant carnivorous plants? Inquiring minds want to know. I may let it go for a little while, then see if I can get a tour.

No book work last night, but I did write/edit for two hours solid. I anticipate some serious Dead Souls time this weekend, though.

So worthwhile.

2008-03-05T20:50:00.000-06:00

"I’ve been to Canada. I guess I encountered Canadians there."

- overheard Tuesday night in my favorite local cafe

I really do have to go out more. I'm always getting these little gifts from the world around me.

Not in prison yet, if you were wondering.

Speaking of gifts, I spent most of yesterday evening over a beer and a sandwich hashing out details for the vampire book, which I'm presently calling Dead Souls. Not sure that title will stick, but it's as good a start as any.

What I have now, though, is a working plot outline. I also know what my vampires can and can't do, what affects them, etc. It was a really productive night, which I nearly lost this morning when I put my USB drive through the wash. Good news: my data survived. Better news: my backup regimen is a little stricter now that I've realized how easy it is to nearly lose 50 hours of work time.

Aside from my fiction suddenly being about 1000% cleaner than it's ever been, and an hour putzing around bringing my notes into order and working on the book, I've also had to e-mail the University meat lab and ask them, point blank, if I can buy blood from them.

I need to know this because David, my protagonist, needs to know this. Just like I will need to know blood disposal procedures at a local hospital, or what life in the tech support trenches is like at my local ISP...

clever title goes here.

2008-03-02T23:50:00.000-06:00

"It's not what it looks like!"

So when I disappear and have to start blogging from prison, it will be because in order to tell some of my story about tonight I had to Google the following search string:

dildo, supermarket, two-year-old

It's not what it looks like, your honor. Let me explain.

Tonight was a Chloie night. Aside from failing to bring along the box of teeth I'd intended to bring along, and forgetting the other box full of random things, the evening went pretty well. I got a bit of nonsense hashed out about the book, got some new directives and ideas, might have a tighter grip on David and Eli (though less of a grip than I'd like on Steven and Liz) and worked a bit more on vampire mechanics.

(I am almost certainly over-thinking this last point. On the other hand, I've half-resolved to drink only red liquids between now and the end of the first draft. Not sure I'm actually serious about it, though. We're almost out of cranberry juice, and I'm not sure I really need to be cutting it with vodka at 12:30 on a Monday morning.)

At any rate -- and I don't recall exactly how we got to this moment in the conversation, exactly -- but Chloie starts telling us this story that her husband found on the Internet about a political blogger's wife, and an embarrassing moment involving a huge black dildo with a crank at the end. Hilarity ensues, we share a few similarly awful moments from our own lives (including one of mine, known only as "the Condom Story"), and speculate on what the crank might be used for and how it might be oriented, etc.

So yes. When they charge me for being a pervert, my only defense will have to be this story, and kind testimony of my friends.

Wrote a couple of good book sections this weekend. Still listening to a fair amount of Joy Division. Saw They Might Be Giants play tonight. Very tired.

And now, bed.

Ian Curtis gave me my book back.

2008-03-01T03:40:00.000-06:00

I did everything, everything I wanted to,
I let them use you for their own ends,
To the centre of the city in the night, waiting for you.
To the centre of the city in the night, waiting for you.

- Joy Division, "Shadowplay"

I think the book and I finally got onto the same page tonight. I went to see Grant Gee's new documentary, Joy Division, because I love the band and have sort of a thing about Ian Curtis. Something about it rattled everything loose again, gave me a working title (Dead Souls), and reminded me who my characters are.

So yeah. Closer and Unknown Pleasures go into heavy rotation...sort of now.

Now with 500% more strawberry-scented elven elegance.

2008-02-26T12:50:00.000-06:00

“The essential part of creativity is not being afraid to fail.”

Edward H. Land

Hating the book right now, but not necessarily in bad ways. Trying to come crawling back to it. Mostly in good ways.

I think I've let myself get caught up in the "no such thing as a good vampire book" mentality again. It's easy to be elitist about a genre that often appears to be ruled by the lowest common denominator.

Note to self: watch some Buffy, listen to Impeccable Blahs, and get over yourself already. It's not like you're writing Night Travels of the Elven Vampire.

2008-02-21T11:56:00.000-06:00

“Every mile is two in winter”

George Herbert

Tonight was going to be plot doctoring night with John, but nature seems to have some other plans, so I'll be flying solo. The good news is that I've sent off my current recreational project to the editor, so there's nothing exciting and shiny and new distracting me from the task at hand.

I need to find my copy of Impeccable Blahs, and maybe some of my BTVS DVDs. I need to get into my notes and get my shit together. Maybe I'll go to the library.

Oh, and I need to stop being sick. Feeling like crap kills writers dead.

2008-02-16T13:38:00.000-06:00

Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance.

So I'm sitting in a coffee house and just heard a youngish sounding man shout the words, "I was a slut, okay?" Is it sad that I had to stop myself from sitting up and seeing if it's the barista I have trouble looking at directly?

Life is cruel.

Been having a bit of stress, distraction, and trauma with the book. Mostly, it's a crisis of confidence. I'm not feeling worthy or worthwhile or real. Frankly, my day-to-day feelings are pretty uncentered. I've got a massive case of imposter's syndrome, and I worry that maybe I'm half-assing some things I'd rather not half-ass.

Obviously, the way to get past it is to power through, do the best I can, and know that the feeling will pass. I can do good work. I can write honest, soul-scorching prose. I just have to get over this hump without losing my shit and deciding to become a fashion designer or an accountant or an underwater welder and we'll be fine.

Or, you know, I'll start writing about my new job as a Himalayan climbing guide.

Plotting continues. I'm still having problems getting a feel for the 'bad guys.' Part of this may be because the original 'bad guys' are starting to feel more like a red herring, and that the real 'bad guys' have yet to show up in my notes. This is pretty damn discouraging, and I'd really benefit from having someone to really discuss this with in-depth, but there's no one in my immediate sphere who's appropriate, available, and interested all at once.

I just heard a youngish woman say, "I thought that only skinheads were, like, definitely evil."

Clearly, sitting around in public is doing me good, though I've not put word one in the page in the last two hours. I have, however, eaten some very nice cake, and crawled happily into a bottomless cup of house coffee.

Perhaps tonight my muse and I will be a little more in synch.

2008-02-06T02:15:00.000-06:00

"Show me where Stalin is buried and I'll show you a Communist Plot."

Edgar Bergen

Spent about thirty minutes today working on book plotting.

The encouraging thing is that seeing things in a sort of rough outline format is letting me know where the holes are. It's also letting me formulate questions in an intelligent way. Like, "What three things does Beth ask David for before she'll help him?" Or, "Who's going to get out alive?"

Unfortunately, it's easy to start looking at that outline and see just how often I use the words "blah, blah, blah" or have a whole heading full of questions. Everything feels very airy and undefined right now, and that makes it a little scary to go onto the page where I've already got a few thousand words. I want to try to keep up the momentum I've built. I mean, things are happening. People are doing stuff.

I know it's early in the process. I know this is normal. I also realize that part of the angst is coming from the fact that I'm doing some of this not quite in order. "Let's start writing and then outline!" is possibly not the wisest of strategies.

The good news, though, is that I'm liking David a lot. I'm liking Steven, too. I'm warming up to Beth. And when I figure out who else is involved, I'm sure hoping to like them, too. You know, just in time to blow a big damn hole through one of them...

Edit to add: Also, found a lovely little bit of academic writing [PDF Format!] about vampire ecology. This is specifically written to test dynamics in the Buffyverse, but the model seems sound to non-ecologist me, and that someone who is studying ecology worked this out really just fills me with glee. Also, it makes my life easier because it helps me sort out some of The Rules where pointy teeth are concerned.

I loathe the undead.

2008-02-04T15:35:00.000-06:00

"Count Dracula may not seem like the ideal husband. Of course he's deathly pale, but he's a vegetarian, and they all seem to look like that."

Maxine McKendry in "Andy Warhol's Dracula"

I hate vampires.

It's not because they've been done to (and well beyond) death by people who have no respect for horror, though I suspect that's what makes a lot of other people hate vampires. It's not because vampires in media all seem to shop at the same three shops and listen to Gravity Kills.

No, it's because I'm having trouble making them make sense. The mechanics of vampirism don't seem to be well-codified. I find myself asking lots of questions and finding that my efforts aren't giving me answers that fit into the Vampire Box.

Stupid vampires.

Doubt is Torture

2008-02-03T22:55:00.000-06:00

Don't listen to doubt. It leads no place but to pain and negativity. It is the same with your critic who picks at you while you are trying to write: "That's stupid. Don't say that. Who do you think you are anyway, trying to be a writer?" Don't pay attention to those voices. There is nothing helpful there. Instead, have a tenderness and determination toward your writing, a sense of humor and a deep patience that you are doing the right thing.

Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones, "Doubt is Torture"

Tonight was Chloie night. Just seven of us in a basement with a handful of writing exercises, challenges, and ideas. She gave me a fabulous idea for something which shall henceforth be referred to as "The Well."

The Well is a document/folder/notebook/convenient wall/very impractical tattoo/etc. where a writer keeps all sorts of clever orphaned ideas. Now, in fairness, I've heard of doing this sort of thing before. And, in fact, was already sort of doing it around the edges. Problem is, I am by nature more of a collector of shiny objects than a born organizer. The methods I've encountered before tended to rely on physical objects, card files, notebooks, and all other manner of things I'm basically shit at keeping.

Tonight, I realized that I could make a folder on my jump drive and put things in text files, name the text files after the idea (say, for example "Go-Kart Jump Disasters" or "Sexual Positions With Unfortunate Names") and then just...leave them in there. Shiny objects that I can pick through basically whenever I want.

It's like the simplest thing in the world. It's like the wheel, only it's substantially less good for transportation.

Work on the book begins in earnest this week. By "in earnest" I mean that I have been allowed by her glorious Svengali-ness to retrieve that thousand some words of 'gee, I wonder what would happen if I wrote this' back out and start developing it. Character sketches. Soundtracks. All of that lovely, meaty prewriting and early drafting stuff during which I'm allowed to fuck up every fifteen minutes.

This of course reminds me that I need to keep working at clearing away the debris in the office and start turning it into a proper workspace. Right now, my desk is a box full of books with two of these on top of it. Not very ergonomic, though I suppose the laptop is increasingly close to achieving enlightenment. It's also quite cushy when I lean back in my chair with my legs over them. Really, though, I need a place to keep notebooks. Something table-y or shelf-y. All in good time, I guess.

Oh, and I survived my turning twenty-eight experience. It involved a good deal of drinking and a five hour Rock Band session. Also, cupcakes. Yeah, I live on the edge.

Being self-critical is not the righteous path to success.

2008-02-01T08:10:00.000-06:00

"No, really. I quit school for this. I should probably be doing it."

You don't know me. Or, actually, chances are you probably do know me, but this being the Internet and all, there's probably also a fairly good chance that you don't. So for those of you who don't know me, let's get the important stuff out of the way:

1. My name is Christian, and today is the Friday before my 28th birthday. This excites me for several reasons, the most important being a) it's Friday, and b) my birthday is coming. And probably c) that I'm still young enough to care about birthdays.

2) I'm a writer. That's actually the point of this blog. See, I write. I want to be serious about my writing. The thing about writers, though, is that while the actual activity of writing is quite solitary, most of us are secretly attention whores. I know. It's crazy. Therefore, I need a blog in which to discuss my writing, maybe advertise myself a little, say nice things about people, etc.

3) Yes, I did. There are photographs. And I was wearing a tie.

So what's this about, really? I mean, any old writer can go out and start blogging about, "Oh yes, put words on a page, etc." and it's really not terribly important. Hm.

Well, here's the thing. I'm writing a book. In a year. Start to finish, draft to submission, the whole deal. Or, at least, I'm going to try. I've spent the month of January just having fun, playing around, spending two hours a night just going where the muse wants to go (as long as we go somewhere), and it's intensely rewarding so far. This month, though, the real journey begins.

Mm. Scary.

Phew. Right.

I've written novel drafts -- well, technically they're novellas -- a couple of times before. I wrote them at breakneck speed and then never looked at them again. I've created intricate, detailed story 'bibles' for three novels that I haven't really touched for various, mostly silly reasons.

So how is this different? Well, for one, I've got a Svengali. A very excitable, cheerful Svengali named Chloie. Her mission is to poke me with sticks whenever I falter, or get distracted, or even think of failing. For two, someone I love went and got me a Writer's Market for the festive winter holidays. I like to think my partner is being supportive, but those things ain't cheap, and he's not rich, so there may be a fair amount of "go write me a best seller already so I can hang out and play Rock Band all day instead of this wage slave shit" involved.

Also, I kind of want a place to link to some of the really cool people out in the writing world who've either encouraged and supported me so far, or inspire me to keep trying even when I'm still not quite sure what the hell it is I'm meant to be doing.

So yeah. First post. If you're reading, say hi. I'll say hi back.

Things I've Written, Places I've Been

2001-03-06T17:45:00.004-06:00

Fiction

- "When Aja..." Thaumatrope, 2/14/09

Non-Fiction

- Associated Content, various articles. (See profile here.)

Presentations, Panels, Readings

- "Working With LGBTQ Colleagues and Students," presented at MoCPA Support Staff Drive-in Conference, Drury University, Springfield, MO on 3/13/2009

- "Who Has Ever Been So Young" (Poem), read at Men Speaking Out Against Violence presented by MARS and Men As Allies, Ragtag Cinemacafe, Columbia, MO on 4/8/2009

Updated 4/8/2009