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Showing posts from 2010

That season

A little over a week since the last update, which is strange because I knew that, and yet did not find myself here until now, New Year's Eve eve. I think every year I introspectively rediscover some dingy spot on the china white finish of the holiday season; I never stare at it for long, but it does show up in my dreams. Fortunately, that led me to turn to my writing for distraction, and consequently, my goal of reaching chapter 20 before I returned to work is very much on pace. Today I will draft chapter 19, and I still have a few more days off next week (sometimes, working at a school is marvelous). Though, a few of my friends haven't been so lucky (in regards to productivity). One friend actually revealed to me that cabin fever is real, or rather, is not the fear of being stuck in the woods cut off from all internet access (like being stuck in a log cabin, witness protection-style). Apparently, cabin fever more pertains to being stuck inside for an extended period of time.

The passage of time like stones on the roadside

Yesterday I passed into the final stage of edits for my novel to be released in March (if I'm not going to be confident about it, who will?). The copy editor congratulated me because the only problems the publishing editor had were "accidental double spaces between words" and "repositioned commas." The copy editor called the stage "errata" and gave me a list of instructions. It seems to be a little different on their end but more or less the same on mind: read my novel all the way through, line by line, and tell them what I'd like changed. The only difference, really, is that "this is not the time for rewrites, but rather to catch any last minute mistakes or oversights." I'm amazed once again about how little I know about this whole process; I guess I missed the chance to rewrite anything... I hear stories about how writers dislike their first novel, and many of them habitually pour over the produced volume with a marker or highligh

Links in a chain (of being)

Whoever heard of vacation hitting someone hard? Last night I was not struck with an obligatory urge to go to bed early and voila, here I am bleary eyed at lunch time. The entire weekend was also a bit unproductive. I was social; I did hang with friends. But otherwise, I brought none of my various plots to fruition. On the other hand, there is news of a small sort. One of the editors at the sports story site got back to me, and gave me an assignment. Not long after, I completed my fourth story for the site , however I've yet to receive any feedback from the editor who gave me the story to do (and it wasn't even much of a story, just a loose frame of an idea, and a rigid title of sorts). Likewise, I discovered, or rather re-discovered a site called Fictionaut (two people, when told this story over the phone both replied "Knot, like k-n-o-t?"). I will admit to not knowing at all how the site functions, but there seems to be hundreds if not thousands of writers there.

Contrarily confused cognition

Monday morning seems to work better for blogging. I get up hours before I need to be anywhere and I sit and stare at my computer screen, thinking about nothing. I can't say why, but I do desperately hate getting up and rushing, woken by a blaring alarm clock and pushed about by the crazy urge that if I don't rush, I'll be late. Slow suits me. And, I have time to post these erstwhile updates about this existence of mine. I was very excited yesterday when I realized how one of my book series would end. I hate admitting that I was writing while not knowing every last single detail of the story, even more so that I was honestly writing while thinking that it would just come to me. It did, but that doesn't necessarily feel like my assumption was laudable. It also turns out that thinking of things I'm not currently working on isn't so bad so long as shortly after I jump right back into what I am working on. I've worked through my mini-outline and will be starti

A war for middle ground, begat by tiny green demons

In a previous post, I mentioned a resolution to double the writing I had already completed this month, which at the time was two blog posts (one here, one on bleacher report) and three chapters of the novel. On yesterday evening, I fulfilled that goal. For those of you so inclined, at least some of the evidence is here . The chapters (which now number six and an introduction) you'll just have to take my word for. It's coming along. I told a friend about how surreal the process was of taking a chapter from its roughest, least realized state to something I was much, much happier with. And so, one piece at a time, I'm building me a road. The destination I've always been confident in knowing, but the dips and curves, the climate and conditions, those have always been foggy, to use a pun. The other day, on an email group I'm plugged into, one of those terribly long streams was compiled and compiled and sent to me. I try to keep abreast of such things in as far as figur

A simple update about complex things

I wish these hiatuses of mine indicated some great, fiery period of productivity, but really, how little I commit to this blog has nothing to do with how active I'm being otherwise. I did start the novel, successfully turning NaNoWriMo into NaNoStarMo (see what I did there? magic). I'm ten thousand words in and mostly happy with what those words are, their order and arrangement. Working with a friend in his scene shop at his theater, I was holding a screw gun, staring down at a nailed together structure that would, once install and painted, be the wall of a set and realized that we do sort of the same thing. Emphasis on sort of. There's a handy manual filled with useful knowledge like invincible knots and saw horse designs and how to hang something from the ceiling so it swings, doesn't swing, or can even raise up and down after being affixed. For writers... well, I guess you could say the book hasn't been written yet, ironically. Like today at work I saw a flye

There are excuses and then there are reasons

Sometimes, when people tell me it's this month or that month, I wish I could retaliate with some well-prescribed barb, but mostly it is out of my own lack of watching or reading or embracing any sort of news. I don't know how long November has been "National Novel Writing Month" (I also just figured out how to say the acronym) but it seems like for the past couple years I'm re-reminded at the end of October. Thankfully, even people that both know I'm a writer and that November is what it is don't ask me if I'll be writing a novel. Not that I'd go so far as to tell them off, but it would avoid the slight mote of sadness that I won't be. This year I have an excuse, though. I wrote a novel this year already. Actually, I wrote four. None of them took less than a month to pen, but they were all started after January 1st and drafted before now. I also sort of cheated. Because as I'm finding out with the new idea I'm working on, from the con

What were you supposed to be

Seems appropriate for this to be a Halloween post. Or is it? I realized last night at a party (if you knew me, you'd be shocked) how little I knew about the event. I know it comes from Hallow's Eve, and it happens at night, so I guess the real time to have done this would've been last night, among all the ghouls and goblins and such. Or maybe it's like Christmas and there's an eve, then an actual day. I digress. It turns out the blood wasn't real. I opened the file from the editor and actually guffawed at all the red and spiraled back to a time when I was small and when sitting in a desk my feet didn't touch the floor (again, if you knew me, you'd be shocked). But then, I took a closer look, allowed to me by a healthy amount of rejection and criticism over the years, and realized a few things. 1) Microsoft Word track changes randomly picked red; when I made my own changes later they were in blue, and when I re-opened the file the editor's changes w

Aspersions as hallow's eve shadows

Timeliness is one of those things they teach us in school, but not really. There are penalties for being late after a certain age, and maybe someone will sit us down and explain in brief the importance of being on time. But there's no homework or essays or discussions about it. They just tell us, and some of us listen. In college, all of us at least once skip out on a professor who wasn't on time themselves. I got the edits of the novel back later than when I was initially told, but the editor was gracious about being late, and I reciprocated, because I've been late on at least a hundred occasions so far in my life. I got them today, and they came with a stipulation to have my feedback back to her in ten days (contractual stipulation). It's been some time between passing this work along (ie, reading it over that last time) and now, so I can't be completely sure how long it would take to read through it, much less fine-tooth the thing with all sorts of dangling bit

Rich today, but with metaphor

A few weeks ago, I made a mistake that cost me. It was maybe the first great piece of advice I ever received about writing: get it all down before you realize it stinks. My mentor, as you might imagine, is a bit of a cynic. And while I always believed him, I found out that he was right. I had a story that I was pretty excited about going. I might have mentioned also that it was not without its problems. But I was working. And then I stopped, because I realized it stunk. It's the first time in a long time that that's happened, and something of mine imploded, sort of like one of those whimpering cakes that fail to rise, or more appropriately, rise and then sort of flatten, dejected. It was a cornerstone of my very early years in story telling that I'd spin off yarns that were not endless so much as leading to a frayed edge that bespoke of the greater tapestry being woefully incomplete. However, last week I went out with a friend from the writer's group to a Borders of a

Too scared to be afraid

Catching up with a friend, I told her I had learned a wealth of things since we last spoke. And I guess I sounded really serious; she asked me what sorts of things I could've learned in only a few weeks. Before I go any further, the list is actually shorter than you might think. The items' weights were only real to me. It occurred to me that I don't mention the fairly constant stream of rejections I get from various places I submit to, not because I'm ashamed but because it's more or less the only sort of non-bill mail that I get. Every other month I tell myself I'm going to start mailing myself correspondence, mostly blank sheets of paper with smiley faces in the corners. I spoke with a writer friend, the same one who was nice enough to bug me about going to dragon con, and he and I have decided to lean on each other some in regards to redoubling our efforts on the writer's path. But it didn't stop me from thinking about why I keep getting rejected.

Quoting others can create the illusion of wisdom

I'm returning from a brief hiatus during which my computer was at times broken, at times just in pieces. A friend helped out, and I learned some things about how computer hardware works. This of course doesn't mean that I'd be able to perform maintenance myself; as a point of fact, I'm simultaneously confident that I learned some things yet have no idea what those things actually are. Something very similar happened when I read this essay by a scholar self-professed to be disdainful of creative writing programs . Being confused, naturally I forwarded it to my mentor, who is not a "technician incapable of abstract thought" which is what he refers to stereotypical doctors of literature, but a creative writer, like myself (I think?). Not that I learned much of anything from hearing his own subjective view. Or maybe I learned that no one is objective in the matter, which I realized is what I was looking for. The same friend who worked on my computer waxed philosop

Dusty knees red palms and lasers

I talked with a new acquaintance recently about my quest for new experiences. Or rather, my acceptance that new experiences will work to my advantage as an author and my half-hearted attempts at seeking them out. As it turned out, the topic of conversation came right around the time that one of my email accounts was hacked. Or perhaps phished, I'm not sure which. I'd heard about the phenomenon before, and seen the towers of rage people became over the occurrence. But I was a bit senseless about the whole affair. I was sad, and deflated that it had happened to me, and felt pretty low about being misrepresented. I even went so far as to be curious as to why someone would spend their time burrowing into other people's lives. I do have that experience though, piled on top of all the others, so I guess it can't all be bad. I also was finally rejected by a quarterly contest I've had the habit of entering repeatedly over the past year. It took longer than usual, and just

Go upstairs to check the basement

Another week, and another end, and not much accomplished. For about a week I've been staring at the last few chapters of the novel scribbled down in summarizing paragraphs. I don't know the term for it, or even if there's a word to describe it, but I've seen it done for a script. Whatever the case, I got the rest of this bad boy more or less wrapped up and it all fits, finally, on one sheet of paper. I might have mentioned doing a celebratory type outing in honor of the draft being complete. I might have also mentioned that so far I've only mentioned it to another writer in the group. But I'm happy enough with it that I could eat out alone and still feel pretty awesome. I'm less proud of phase two of a fairly deep regression. I'm still watching the anime, to be sure, but I recently purchased a video game and have also begun to dump hours and hours of my life into that as well. Helpful little program by the name of Steam lets me know how many hours I

On old operating systems

Today's been good, following a rough first week back at work. I got the same questions from students, the most common of which being "Why you talk like that?" and "How come you look at me like I'm stupid?" (my honest answer, at least to the second question being : That's just how my face looks). What has been especially important to me is figuring out when I will most likely have space and peace to write. In the past, I've pushed myself to prove that I can do so under almost any circumstances, but absolutely the work does suffer. And forcing myself over longer periods of time is just taxing. But I did manage to draft a chapter today, along with an article for another gig I landed , however no work yet done on "The Worst: Bad Guy Academy." However, speaking of forcing oneself to do things, during the chapter (number 24, thanks very much) I did have to rework several pages. And by rework I mean erase and go a different direction. The very s

My way of the ninja

It's been a while. I'm not sure how long, which I guess means that maybe it hasn't. Certainly, I haven't been writing as much as I should have. And I haven't been all that busy, either. If I were to take some artistic liberty, I'd say I've been investing energy into a specific facet in a moment in my past that made me really happy. And as a result, for a brief time, I was excited about something, and it was deep enough a reservoir that I could dive in with no fear of it running out. It was almost a little daunting. And if I were to be completely honest, I'd say I was watching anime. A lot of it, one particular series with hundreds and hundreds of episodes. In one of my more satirical moods, it actually spawned an idea in my brain whose concept name is "The Worst: Bad Guy Academy." But more on that later. To say that I get a lot of emails would be erroneous. Or, not exactly true. I belong to a handful of email groups, and things are sent out o

Reed Richards be damned

Typically, I'm not big on quoting people or touting the names of products, however much I like or dislike them (generally because I'm too lazy to look into the vagaries of libel). But I'm going to take a risk today: "the true measure of a man is not where he stands in times of comfort but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy" (or something like that). And I don't say that to mean that I'm in overly turbulent waters personally (though life has sort of kicked me in the pants, recently), I say that to pass along some advice that I've found useful. I drafted chapter 20 today of the novel, and was feeling kind of down about how it turned out. Some of my poetry got rejected, and another short story as well (some romantic things went astray also) so those set backs (that's what Dr. Doom calls defeats) tinted my lenses. I could feel the thoughts before I thought them: What's the point, I keep getting rejected, over and over, doesn

Just think if Obi Wan had only had a mustache

I seem to recall mentioning my making an attempt at being more self-aware. Being honest, that was less of the theme for today. I sent off another short story, and just recently completed a second draft of chapter 19 of the novel (been thinking I'd celebrate when I hit 20, like a kid growing out of their teens). I even fiddled with a little technology in regards to a wireless USB adapter and a little bit of computer maintenance (shut up, it's a pretty big thing for me). Today I feel pretty good. Yesterday, I was lost. And I mean that literally and metaphorically. I hung out with a friend, and the main focus was satisfying a curiosity of mine that I've been holding onto for awhile. You see, marketing is pretty effective. Especially marketing for establishments that are just far enough away to make them annoying to drive to. Like Red Robin. People had told me about the place, and yesterday I finally went and tasted for myself. It wasn't what I expected. Nor was getting l

Ironic distance

Thursday critique with a Wednesday one following makes for a lightning quick turnaround. That is, given an assist from a particularly social weekend. I hung with three different friends on three consecutive days and now here it is Tuesday. I thank my stars that it was only the one piece to plow through, and that it was only 24 pages. The group has refocused on getting things sharp and them sending them out, so this piece was further along than normal. In a bit of shamelessness, I actually gave the writer to be critiqued my newest piece in hopes of extracting some more feedback for myself (I mean, he wasn't doing anything but waiting for his feedback, right?). One of my friends lumps this under a personality trait of mine called the "feedback monster." I can't say it's an incorrect assessment. The previous story I wrote got decent reviews. At least, all issues pertained to the same topic: the hardest thing that the story in question had to do, which was describe

Today, and what the wind throws back

Well, today is the last day of the summer semester, and it would appear that I haven't noticeably ruined anyone's life or steered anyone wrong to the point of them soaring off a cliff. I cound that a win. But, I've found that our impacts are hardly visible until much later, after we've make them. This quandry is actually the focus of a mountain notes I've been expanding, and pushing in the direction of yet another novel project. I've come to more fully understand a joke Chris Rock made in a recent stand-up in regards to the difference between a job and a career (along with people with jobs and those with careers). And I realized the differnce between writing and preparing to write. I call them notes, and sometimes I call the process outlining, but really, it's just preparation. I've become confident that I can throw my creativity at virtually anything, and in my mind, whatever it is will sprout blossoms and produce colors. And while that's all well

Of taste and consistency

Lately, I've been catching up on things I should've done earlier. This mostly includes watching movies and television shows (it sounds like I work pretty hard when I say it like that, right?). A friend of mine chastised me for a statement I made about how much writing I do. I told her, seriously, that if I compounded up all the time I spent doing things that furthered or lead to writing, then I don't do much else aside from eat and sleep. Which is not to say that I live in an internment camp. I do it because I like doing it. I got a copy of a signed contract back, and was invited to yet more online groups. The welcome was warm, and the emails of things rated from stuff I need to know to stuff I don't even understand is up to maybe 100 or so a day. I have discovered a really neat feature in my email client that lets me "mark as read" things I haven't actually tended to. Check back with me later for when that bites me in the ass. As a recent movie (which I

Like colorful explosions

Good things are producing good feelings, today and they have little to do with the extra day off work. As predicted (my prediction was accurate, so that's good, too), hitting chapters 5 and 6 of the novel were good for the momentum. I'm up to 7, with plans for 8 and looking back I think to myself with some pride about how I got this far. It's so much easier now, a breeze compared to the still-fresh memory of the teeth-grinding fiasco of the first handful. In addition to that, I have another short story in mind and it makes me laugh boisterously and say out loud, "Awesome, that's awesome!" I'm excited.  In other news, I've read the previous short story about ten times and am really tired of looking at it. It could be that it's so much longer than most shorts I write. Or it could be something else, which watching the first episode of Lost provided insight into. A friend, a certifiable "Lostie" sat me down and watched me watch the episode.

How possible could it impossibly be

Recently, I got about as close to beating a video game as I ever do: the last, gut-wrenching level that requires the player to compress all their long hours of training and resourcefulness into one fifteen minute battle with a nightmarish scenario dreamed up by some designer somewhere with too much time and not enough friends. Which is to say I lost. Repeatedly. And overall, the game wasn't an utter waste of my time and energy. I enjoyed playing it, and even more than that, I enjoyed playing the same company's next offering even more. It was evident that they had learned some things. A friend sitting on the couch next to me commented sagely as we waited for the scenario to load again so we could give it another go: "I would really like to see them remake this game with all the knowledge they've accrued." And I second that, however impossible such things sometimes are. The decision has more or less been made. The publisher that had one of my novels gave me a cont

Testify (got a song, gone sing it, if you know the words, feel free)

I'm not sure when last I posted, so that probably means something. I have been writing though; I'm getting some traction in the novel and it's gaining momentum. Yesterday, I revised my latest short story a bit more and sent it off. The automated email told me it could take up to 10 weeks to get a reply. So, more waiting. And I'm not complaining (much), because you never want the reply to come back too soon. Sending something off on a Monday and getting a rejection by that next Tuesday is an indication of more negative things than positive ones. So, more finger-crossing, which is to say, putting it out of my mind and setting my sights on the next idea to put to paper. A couple weeks ago, when I set out to start this next novel, I posted on facebook that I was "climbing another mountain." This past week I realized how wrong I was about that. Metaphorically speaking, the act of writing a novel, for me at least, is less like climbing a mountain and more like cli

The teachings: from Mario and Egon

I think it's always funny when the hero says "I don't believe in prophecy," in reply to someone that just told him or her what will or won't happen because of predestination. Because the character is a construct, a grouping of ideas, a made thing. They don't believe in anything, not really. Whether they're right or wrong, whether prophecy, in their context, functions or not, has already been predetermined in and of itself. I think to myself: "you poor foolish idiot. Don't you realize the princess is already in another castle?" The writing group went well last night. My gut's confidence is restored. The group liked my story, fairly unanimously, using words like "tight" to describe the condition of the story having very few and minuscule places where the body bends strangely or gears where the transmission catches. It does everything I wanted it to do, and does it well enough to start thinking of the next draft as the final draft

Trying to get one more cookie

On Thursday, some wily cameraman got some really good footage at the 2010 NBA Finals Game 1 in LA. Chris Rock, plugging his upcoming movie, was at the game with co-star David Spade, and as comedians do, they were cracking jokes while the game was still in jeopardy of being lost by the home team. Then, the shot expanded to not only include Rock, and Spade, but Kobe Bryant (yeah, they had really good seats). He was sweating, and breathing hard, and most definitely in ear shot of Rock's antics. Actually (or at least that's what people said later) he was actually talking to Kobe. And the hall-of-famer didn't laugh, or even smile. A clever commentator used the NBA star's expression to make a point about being focused, keeping one's mind on the task. I think wow is what my contribution to the conversation was. Last year around this time, I was writing a novel. It's so foggy now, like a dream. I can remember what happened, but the more I try to decipher the details

The acme wheel

I'm learning again. Growing, too.Which also means I'm sort of failing. It's the first of a new month, at least it was earlier this week. Naturally, I thought it was a good time to pull the trigger on this new novel. I had my outlines, character synopses, motivations, sketches. I knew who was who, who was where, where was what, all that jazz.  And *counts fingers* four days later I'm more or less where I was when I began. I even started the day with a facebook status message before spitting in my hands and rubbing them together (that's how it's done, right?). Then I jumped. And now, I'm doing my impression of Wile. E. Coyote at the drawing board, tapping my foot in consternation.  More specifically, my explanation to a friend was " the problem is that it's a fantastical situation, so [certain] things get thrown out the window, but in the vacuum I've created, the assertions [that I'm trying to put forth] don't have legs." That, als

Ricardo Montalban will beat you up

Two weeks ago, I was given a DVD to watch at the behest of my writer's group. I say it that way because it was less of an assignment, and more of a social obligation in that it was put into my hands along with the burden of their expectation that I would watch it then we could discuss it. So of course I didn't. When it came back around, an up and coming screen writer in the group somewhat excitedly said "I think one of us had a movie to watch," and I was given the terrible duty of disappointing all of them. However, that sick feeling in my stomach was just enough to get me to pop it into the player and view Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. There was only the one down side, where something like a scratch made the DVD slow, stop, and skip, forcing me to work my techno-craft and fix the problem. With only a ten-minute break in activities, I managed to watch the entire film. I say film because it was good. Shatner didn't sound (to me) like the Priceline guy; he sou