Category Archives: Writing

Entries where I talk about my writing: stories, novels, general creativity.

Administrivia, Just a Day in My Life, NaNoEdMo 2007, Writing

NaNo.*Mo

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Okay, so I’ve decided that this year I’m going to officially sign up for NaNoEdMo, and use the time to finish up this current draft of The Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster.  This isn’t quite what I had in mind for the year; I was planning on finishing up this draft in January, using February to write Part Two of The Return of Deacon Dread, and then use NaNoEdMo to begin the revisions on the finished first draft of Solitude.  But what the heck.  As long as I’m getting it done, that’s all that matters..

The Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster has really taken over my life.  A few weeks ago, when I tried to do the weekend novel thing, characters from Solitude kept popping in and demanding scenes.  When I try writing short stories lately, all I can think about is the current scene in the novel.  I’ve got a couple of stories that are supposed to distract my inner editor with when it starts popping up its ugly head, but that little bugger has been pretty quiet these past few weeks.  I’m about 55,000 words into my rewrite, and I think I’ve got about 30,000 words to go.

Uh oh.  I wonder if a rewrite counts as part of the editing process for NaNoEdMo?

Meh.  Who cares?

My muse, Berthold, has been pretty talkative lately, which is annoying.  I’ve been reading a book about Genghis Khan lately, and Berthold is of the opinion that I could write some sort of story involving Khan, and possibly Christmas trees.  The book is fascinating so far; I had spent my life just thinking of Khan as a random barbarian leader, never considering the level of tactical and strategic brilliance the man had to possess in order to achieve what he did.

But Genghis Khan and Christmas trees?  You can see why I have a love/hate relationship with my muse.

In other news, I’ve continued messing around on my website, mostly learning how to better incorporate data objects with portable code, which helps me a lot with my job.  I’ve upgraded my blog software to WordPress 2.1.1, and cleaned up a bunch of code in the different libraries and stylesheets.  I think it looks very nice now; and I believe I’ve even finally fixed the bug that was causing it to crash in Internet Explorer (being a Linux/Open Source kind of guy, I use Firefox almost exclusively, and never even though to test it in IE).  I’ve also added a very simple forum; I don’t expect a lot of traffic to be flowing through my site, so the forum is mostly another exercise in code integration and customization.  Feel free to take a look and poke at it, though, if you like.

Last Friday, Jennifer and I and a member of my RL writers’ group went to Petaluma to see Christopher Moore, one of my top four favorite writers, talk and do a signing.  The man’s as hilarious in person as he is in his books.  At the end of his little talk, all three of us had sore bellies and faces from laughing so hard.  I’ve got a picture of Jennifer and me and him somewhere around here; I’ll post it when I get a chance.

He signed all the books we brought; six of his, and one science fiction novel by someone else entirely.  I’d heard he’d sign any book at all, even if he hadn’t written it; I’d brought along my copy of The Zombies that Ate Pittsburg (a non fiction book about the films of George Romero), but I left it in the car.

Before the event, we went to eat dinner at a little Irish style pub in downtown Petaluma.  The owners did a pretty decent job of making the place feel very Irish, though it was much brighter (it had windows, and it wasn’t raining outside), and seemed cleaner.  But the Guinness was great.

And in the final bit of daily news, we had Terminix come out to do another termite inspection, to follow up on the one that Clarke did a couple of weeks ago.  Terminix found no sign whatsoever of termite activity.  Now I’m thinking about having Orkin come out; best two out of three.

Writing

I Haven't Mentioned This Yet…

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…but on Friday, Jennifer and I are going to go see Christopher Moore in Petaluma.  I just finished reading Fluke; like most of his other books, this is one that made me laugh, made me think, and made me go, "Aw, hell, I’ll never be that good a writer."

Moore will also be a featured guest at a writers’ conference in Foster City (near SF) on March 24, but I’m not going to be able to make it to that.

Nerdgasm, Writing

Today's Word

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Today’s word of the day is "Coulrophobia", which means "fear of clowns".  Apparently there’s some discussion in certain circles as to whether coulrophbia really does exist, or if it’s a social phenomenon brought on by a media full of evil clowns (Stephen King’s Pennywise, for example, or John Wayne Gacy).  The clown as a symbol of jollity and hilarity and overall goofiness has been co-opted by the forces of irony; juxtaposing the image of the happy clown with the forces of darkness probably predates any song that Smokey Robinson sang, but it’s epidemic in our society now.  A few years ago I did an informal survey among some of the younger people I knew, and almost all of them said that they didn’t like clowns; clowns "freak me out", they said over and over.  I rest my case.

Which isn’t to say that I’m not interested in doing my part to further this symbolic degeneration.  The word "coulrophobia" is too delicious to pass up.  I’m thinking of writing a short story called "Coulrophobia"; it would involve clowns (natch) and zombies (because I am who I am).  And because I was listening to Steve Eley’s intro to the most recent issue of Escape Pod (where he bemoans the lack of love stories in speculative fiction), I’m thinking that my zombie clown story has to be a love story.

Maybe I can even get 1,000 words written down by the time our writers’ group meets tomorrow night.

In other news, I was amused by the little shout out to the nerd community at the end of Heroes last night, but I think they gave it away too soon by listing his name in the opening credits.  They should have left it out.  The joy would have been even greater.

Published Stories, Writing

An Audio Special: Indications

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Because the stories on Pseudopod are released under the same license as my content in this blog, I can redistribute the MP3 of my story, "Indications", here on my website (so long as I don’t alter it, and don’t charge for it).  Because of the way this blog and the Audio plugin works, I can only post it here on my site; so if you’re reading this on Bloglines or some other feed reader, you’ll just have to click through.  Well, fine.  So it does work in Bloglines and other feed readers.  Silly me.

[audio:http://www.mossroot.com/worlds/audio/Pseudo008_Indications.mp3]

Enjoy!

Writing

Rejection Slip Intrigue

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Back in March 2006, I got a rejection slip from Weird Tales for my short story "Indications" (which was eventually bought by Pseudopod). The note started out like this:  "Thank you for letting us see your work, ‘Indications’ — and in perfect format, this time around! (emphasis added)".  I thought that second clause was kind of strange, but I just let it go.

Recently, digging through my files, I came across another rejection slip from Weird Tales, this one dated March 2003 and for another short story, "Burying Uncle Albert".  Re-reading that note, I noticed the second paragraph:

Please pity the poor, overworked eyes of editors: we need a standard, legible format.  An offense we see much too often is type that is too small; that is, anything less than 12 point (10 pitch) type line-spaced at less than 24 points (on a typewriter, no tighter than double-line spaced)…

I know that most editors at most markets don’t bother remembering the names of authors or keeping track of everything that people have submitted, but it seems odd to me that, in light of the letter from 2003, the letter from 2006 would include that second clause.  Do they have a file of every submission from every author that crosses their desk?  More likely, they have a database of all rejection slips sent out, and when they send out another one they simply cross-check and see if any other rejections have been sent to the author.

That’s the likely explanation, but I prefer the ego-stroking explanation: that the editor remembered my earlier story as outstanding but not quite right and recognized my name for the second one and remembered, "Hey! That’s the guy with that really great story that didn’t quite work and was formatted badly!"

Thoughts, anyone?

(By the way, I’ve always ensured that my manuscripts are perfectly formatted now, ever since that 2003 note.)

Writing

Crazy Writing Fool

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Over at Urban Drift, there’s a new challenge: to "pull a Moorcock", and write a complete novel in a weekend, starting on February 2 — which just happens to be this Friday. As John Scalzi put it, it’s for those people who think that National Novel-Writing Month is just a tad leisurely, or for wimps. Why "pull a Moorcock"?  Because apparently Michael Moorcock has been known to sit down and do exactly that: write a novel in a two or three day period of time.

I’ve decided that I’m in. So on Friday afternoon, once I get home from work, I’m going to sit down and start writing, and see what happens.  At the moment, I have no idea what I’m going to write about, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens.  I’m wide open to suggestions, too, so here’s the usual appeal: if you give me an idea or a title that I really like, I’ll be happy to use it, and then kill you in the manner of your choosing in the novel.  So let me know.  What do you think?

Just a Day in My Life, Writing

Inspired by True Events

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“Inspired by True Events.” Every time I see this phrase used in promoting some movie or book or television special, I want to laugh. The movie Windtalkers was “inspired by true events”. So was the movie Eight Below, which was apparently about a bunch of sled dogs that survived being abandoned by their owner in the Arctic (or Antarctic — I’ve never seen the film, and I get the impression that Hollywood doesn’t often stress about getting the distinction right anyway).

I think it’s a marvelous phrase, and I’m going to start using it for my own writing. For example, when Jennifer and I went down to my parents’ house to help them decorate their Christmas tree, we all had a conversation about Christmas stories and strange twists on them. Out of that conversation came “Night of the Frozen Elf”. Therefore, “Night of the Frozen Elf” was inspired by a true event — in this case, a conversation I had with my family.

Likewise, I’m declaring that The Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster is also inspired by true events. I once knew a guy who had a crush on a girl that didn’t reciprocate his feelings, and from that improbable event sprang the idea for my novel about ancient alien deities and evil geniuses vying for control over the world.

“Inspired by true events”. Couldn’t be any truer.

Geek, Just a Day in My Life, Writing

Richard Crawford, Live

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I was just on the radio, on a program called Insight, which is produced by our local National Public Radio affiliate, KXJZ. And because I am currently going through my monthly respiratory infection which is zapping my lungs yet again, I dosed myself up with albuterol and decongestants and all kinds of things so I don’t think I sounded sick at all. Go me!

The show is now available on the KXJZ website linked to above.  My segment starts at 26:10.

NaNoWriMo 2006, The Return of Deacon Dread, Writing

Little Twinkies Needed

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Do you all remember that wonderful 80’s film Ghostbusters? Remember that scene where Egon is comparing the average day’s paranormal activity as a Twinkie, and then proclaiming that his numbers pointed to a giant Twinkie looming on the horizon?

I need a bunch of little Twinkies to pepper through my 2007 NaNoWriMo project, The Return of Deacon Dread: odd supernatural events (ideally not actually involving ghosts) that result in someone’s tragic (or, better yet, hilarious) death.

Any ideas? Anyone? The ideas that I really enjoy and end up using will feature the death of the person who suggests it to me (or someone else of that person’s choosing). Since TRODD is just a NNWM project at this stage, I’m not going to worry about potential liability issues.

I’m thinking currently of one Twinkie per chapter, but since I have no idea how many chapters there will be, I can’t say how many Twinkies I want.