I’m looking to build myself a website, with a domain and original art and everything. It’ll probably look much the same as this, so don’t get too excited. I know next to nothing about this stuff, so we’ll see how it goes.
Still working on putting together an event for the Every Day Fiction anthology. Some places won’t call back, others don’t have the book in their system. It’s a whole thing. I fear our window of opportunity is closing.
I just wrote a new piece of flash fiction that I’ve submitted to the writing group for critique. With a little luck you’ll be seeing it somewhere soon. I think it’s a lot of fun, very pulpy. It’s set in the ’50s and involves tentacles, ray guns, and very large math equations. It originally featured Summer Glau as well, but as the time period became apparent, she had to go. The sacrifices we make for our craft, eh?
I’m not sure what to do with my Asta robot noir story. The more I think about the plot and the mystery, the more scenes I need to get it across, and the longer it gets. Sigh.
Still alive! I got astonishingly little done over the holidays. Well, not that astonishing, I guess, if you are at all familiar with my work ethic. As far as holidays go, the past few weeks have been great, very refreshing. We threw a fantastic New Year’s Party. We played a massive amount of Rock Band. Pictures are up at my Facebook account, which as far as I can tell you can’t see unless you are a member. Oh well.
Worthy of note: I believe it is only at a Writer’s Ink-populated party where I can simultaneously play bass on Who Made Who and wax intellectual about Lady Murasaki while pissed on Newcastle Ale.
It’s my turn to provide prompts for the Writer’s Ink monthly prompt contest. I nearly forgot! So I whipped these up:
- Write a story in which a child saves the world
- Write a story using at least three of the following objects: an umbrella, a priceless Buddha statue, a broken phone, a train, a tapestry, a monocle
- Begin a story with the following: “I wish someone had told me…”
- Write a story about something that annoys you
- Write a story about several characters trapped in one of the following: a disabled elevator, a sinking submarine, caved-in mine shaft, damaged spacecraft, ancient catacombs, someone else’s body (interpret that one however you want!)
I’ll be coming up with more later. I may work on one or two of these today, as it appears work is dead.
Trades purchased with Barnes & Noble Christmas gift card: Umbrella Acadamy: Apocalypse Suite, Conan Vol 1, The Frost Giant’s Daughter and other stories
Or insert ethnic/cultural-appropriate season’s greetings here.
I still function! I’ve gotten very little done, though, and this upcoming week looks to be more of the same. Oh cruel irony!
The wife got me The Big Lebowski 10th Anniversary Limited Edition Bowling Ball DVD set. It’s awesome! The parents got me the first season of Battlestar Galactica, equally awesome. More delights no doubt await me later today.
We’ve found the one station not playing A Christmas Story, and it is playing Batman Returns.
Hope everyone is having a good holiday!
So at today’s Writer’s Ink meeting I declared that I would have a story ready for the group to crit in just a few weeks. I’d actually hoped to have a story done by the end of this month anyway, but this gives me an actual deadline to motivate me. If nothing else, it gives me something to fail at, a skill for which I’ve had decades of practice.
I’ve decided to return to the story of my android detective, Asta, who was featured in my published story, “Shades of Red,” earlier this year. He’s a fun character, so I’ve been wanting to write about his origins for a while. I crammed in some Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett earlier this year. I have much of the plot worked out in my head already, and there are certain scenes that are burning up my brain wanting to get out.
What I’m mostly worried about is capturing the voice. I tend to have a simple, straightforward writing style, I think. Some would probably say too simple. There’s a particular flourish to that noir style that I’ll be aiming for. We’ll see if I can pull it off. Actually, when I read KC’s “Oh Woman of Easy Virtue” last month at EDF I thought, “Wow, that’s exactly the sound I need.” Maybe if I send KC my notes she can just write it for me. 
This story will also work perfectly for the group’s cross-genre collection this year, being a sort of sci fi crime story set in the ’30s.
And for the record, Dashiell Hammett is my favorite author name ever.
Title ideas:
The Naked Gear
Atomic Clocks with Dirty Faces
I Was a Fugitive from a Pullys and Levers Gang
The Thin Blue Man
…actually I kind of like that Atomic Clocks one.
Not much to report at the moment. I’m mostly just trying to get through this last week of work before I’m out on vacation. I should start pumping out some more work next week. In a bored moment yesterday I wrote up this fun little scene. I think I’ll end up using it as part of the larger story about these two characters, both of whom you may recognize if you’ve been reading this blog for very long. Just a couple of hundred words.
(more…)
Check out that cover! Our friends Jordan and Camille, from the barren tundras of their frosty homeland in Canada, have produced excellent work.
Yes, the Best of Every Day Fiction 2008 Anthology is finished and ready to order, both in a handsome hardcover edition and a paperback. You’ll find my flash crime mystery “Aftershocks” as well as 99 other awesome stories.
You can purchase it here!
Last night I was playing around with a little flash piece about a super-speedster. I’m not sure it’s working out, and I think maybe the point of view is the problem. I think this might be too introspective and too slow for a character defined by speed. It feels like it should have more energy. I started off like this because I imagine the world must seem like a very slow, still place to someone who exists between the seconds. Anyway, here’s a section of it. I may actually finish it like this, then as an experiment write it in the third person, just to see the difference. I also have a tendency, in first person, to stray into present tense, which is just irritating.
I’m not so sure about his name, either, but that’s another matter. Less than 500 words. (more…)
I have to give a shout out for fellow Writer’s Inker Sandra, who just published her first story over at Mirror Dance. Check it out!
Erin has a story over there as well, but, you know. She’s old news by now. 
Well, my NaNoWriMo word count stands a little north of 10,000 words. While that’s bad for NaNo, it’s actually pretty good for me, for a month. I feel like it’s a solid start to the book I want to write. I’m starting to doubt, however, that what I’ve written will stand well by itself, so I probably haven’t ended up with a sellable short story (er, novella).
I doubt I’ll get much else written in the next few days. There’s the mess of Thanksgiving, of course, and I’ve taken on a freelance copyediting project that’s going to eat up some time as well. It’s a fun project, the contents of which I will only hint at!
However…I think I have made an unexpected and delightful breakthrough as concerning the Asta the Android story I was trying to write previously and got distracted from. The villain featured in this section of the NaNo piece is heavily tied to Asta. It’s simply later in his career than the point at which our android detective met (and subsequently incarcerated) him. Now that I’ve firmly cemented this guy in my mind (well, mostly – I still need a good name for him), I think writing the Asta story should go easier.
So I’m going to set myself a goal for December – write the origin story for Asta the Android. The tagline: Murder! Robots! Mad Scientists! Lesbians?
Great. Now I’ve set myself up for all the “robot lesbian” Google searches. My apologies if that’s what brought you here. Your unnatural but intriguing desires can only go unfulfilled.
I would really like to go all superhero in December. Look out for some superhero flash as well. I’ve been neglecting that urge for too long.
Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
If you don’t already have a subscription to Every Day Fiction, I’m not sure I can help you at this point.
But in case you need further prodding, check out the stories of the last two days:
First up is Ars Draconis, by Jens, a fairy tale with a funny twist. And a dragon!
Next is Oh, Woman of Easy Virtue, by KC, which delights in sin! Had I any scruples left I would blush!
Both have my highest recommendations.
