Here’s a little trick I discovered by accident a while back: Go to Google, and put 250-(tan(4pi/6))^2 into the search field. Hey presto! It does the math. This came in handy yesterday as I was evaluating things like
E.x = Origin.x + sqrt(1/((rv2/rh4)(tan2θ) + 1/rv2)
To find the point on an ellipse where the tangent is at a given angle. My little calculator widget was not remotely up to the task.
One axiom I use when evaluating fiction is that the author is allowed one Big Coincidence in a story. It’s that one unlikely event that turns a mundane situation into something worth writing about. In The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove
You get the idea.
There is, happily, an exception to the one-big-coincidence rule, and that’s farce. Farce is not as easy as it looks; you can’t just throw some new bizarre thing at the reader every time you lose momentum. Ultimately things have to hang together, to make sense in the farcical context, and come to a satisfying resolution. Characters still have to grow and change organically. Lust Lizard pulls off the farce in style.
The sea monster’s bunny-in-springtime effect begins to take hold before he even reaches shore, and unlikely pairings ensue. Alas, Steve the sea monster is not so fortunate in love. After an less-than-successful romantic entanglement with a gasoline tanker, the sea monster disguises himself as a trailer in a trailer park, where he is named Steve by the unstable b-movie actress who lives next door (and still works out with her big sword while dressed in her barbarian outfit).
Steve’s not a bad guy, really. Just hungry and lonely. And it’s not as if anyone liked the paperboy anyway…
Naturally the onus for figuring out what’s going on and doing something about it falls on the local law enforcement. That would be Theo. Theo is stoned most of the time, grows his own weed, and follows orders from the department in the big city. Those orders don’t always make sense from a law-enforcement standpoint, but Theo knows a good gig when he sees one. Only problem is, he’s on his own this time.
Throw in a colorful cast of side characters and this coastal California town is primed and ready for wacky hijinks. And hijinks there are aplenty. This book has its serious moments but even they shimmer with a surreal glaze, then off we go romping through the bizarroverse again. It’s a fun read that never loses its momentum.
I wonder, with books like this, which came first, the story or the title?
Note: if you use the above link to buy this book (or a Kindle
The Easter Bunny paid a visit last week, leaving a treasure trove of yummy goodies on my nightstand. For whatever reason the leporidal spring icon snubbed my sweetie's nightstand, but being the guy I am, I'm happy to share. Thus it came to pass that we found ourselves with Peeps and chocolate bunnies to munch. As we contemplated our sugar-laden feast The Light of My Life looked at me with round eyes. "We have graham crackers!"
Cracker, bunny head, and peep, ready for the microwave
As every red-blooded American knows, marshmallow+chocolate+graham cracker = s'mores. Traditionally smores are eaten around campfires, where one heats the marshmallow over the flames and then wedges it into a sandwich were the hot marshmallow softens the chocolate. We lacked a campfire, and used our trusty microwave oven instead.
Many of you may be aware of what happens to marshmallows in a microwave. With Peeps it's even better. Let me tell all of you now: Drop whatever you are doing, go to the store, buy some peeps, bring them home, and put one in the microwave. Do it! I'll wait...
You're back? Great! Wasn't that the funniest thing you've ever seen? Ever? Unfortunately, my attempts to photograph the peeps while in the microwave failed, so those of you who did not drop everything to put a peep in the microwave will just have to perform the experiment later.
Once the peep and the chocolate were all gooey and yummy we slapped on graham cracker lids and sat in front of the television stuffing our faces with sugar. And that, dear readers, is what Easter's all about.
Harlean Carpenter (who is a fiction) has a photo entered in a contest at Pinup Lifestyle. It’s a pretty cool picture. The winner is decided by public vote, and while there is some pretty strong competition, it’s realistic to think she has a shot. I (who is less of a fiction but not entirely real) took the picture, and I think it’s easily the best photo not taken in a professional studio with real photography lights.
The theme of this month’s contest is circus/carnival (or something like that). Some of the entries aren’t really on-theme, but a few really do capture the theme in a pinup style.
The thing is, judging by last month’s winner, it’s not always the best that wins. It’s the one that gets the most votes. Don’t let this injustice happen again! Pop on over to Pinup Lifestyle, vote for my fictitious friend, and then hang out a while to look at the other excellent photos (borderline safe for work).
I was never blessed with much in the eyebrow department; where some people have well-defined and expressive eyebrows that add character to their faces, I just have a faint hint of eyebrowage. It’s one reason that eye surgery has never really appealed to me – my glasses provide some definition on my face that most people get from their eyebrows.
It is possible that my brother took my eyebrow mojo – he certainly has more going on on his forehead than most.
Recently my sweetie and I were cuddling and she started to laugh. “Oh, my God,” she said (or something like that), “you have a crazy eyebrow hair! Go look in the mirror!” I did and she was right; I have one big kinky gray eyebrow hair.
My only notable eyebrow hair.
Man, I sure hope so. That would be cool.
Got an idea for a short film but despair of it ever being produced? Buck up, Sparky! The Duke City Shootout is here to make your film dream come true.
What you do: Write one of the best 12-page screenplays ever. Send it in.
What they do: Choose the best of the screenplays submitted, bring you out to Albuquerque, and provide you with a mostly-skilled crew and (usually) a film industry mentor to help you get the job done. Cameras, grip, and whatnot are provided.
What happens next: After casting local talent and getting everything ready, teams have three days to shoot and four to edit, before the films are judged by an industry panel and then shown in a big theater packed with enthusiastic people. It’s a good time. You can read of my experience in the Shootout Under the Pirates! category. I advise starting with the oldest episodes and working forward in time.
If you have a flair for writing cool short movies, you really can’t go wrong with this festival. It’s a lot of work getting a film to the screen, but here’s a chance to make it happen. Check out The official Duke City Shootout Web page for the lowdown.
What are you waiting for? Get to work on that script!
Every once in a while as my sweetie and I converse, one of us will say ‘that should be on a t-shirt!’ Now she’s gone and done something about it. Now you too can share in the genuis.
quick! do science!!! mug in green
quick! do science!!!
Sometimes you need a steely-eyed, devil-may-care scientist to get you out of a scrape.
“If you have the interrabang [!?], what would you call this?” the project manager for this endeavor asked me, pointing to the ‘!!!’. After a couple of suggestions we decided on ellipsclamation. Now you know!!!
'40 - The New 39' duffel
40 – The New 39
Know anyone staring down the big 4-0? What they need is a rugged gym bag to let the world know that they aren’t intimidated by the rolling of the decade. With Science (see above) on their side, people can expect to perform at a 39-year-old level at least until 41, maybe even 42!
FAQ: WTF? Mouse Pad
My favorite: FAQ: WTF?
It is the frequently asked question.
All the above designs come plastered on a variety of products, not just the ones pictured here. T-shirts, sweatshirts, tote bags and more await at Harlean’s cafepress store! If you want any of the above printed on something else, I’m sure Harlean (who is a fiction) will be happy to set that up for you.
I might have mentioned bacon lollipops a while back; I’m too lazy to go look. But now there’s this!
Caffeinated Maple Bacon Lollipops!
The copy in the announcing email read thusly:
Dear Everyone:
For years, mankind has looked up to the stars and asked, “Why is bacon so awesome? And can it be improved?”
While we here at Lollyphile can’t answer the former without slipping into flowery prose, we are confident in answering the latter. Yes. Yes, it can be improved: it can also be a stimulant. The equation looks like this:
(organic, sustainably farmed bacon) + (Vermont maple syrup) + (the caffeine equivalent of two cups of coffee) = Caffeinated Maple Bacon Lollipops
We’re really, genuinely proud of these lollipops. Not like the normal newsletter or press release “We are proud to offer…” proud, but like the genuine, “Hey lookit this thing my child can do exceptionally well” proud. Really proud. And excited.
Now isn’t that something? (No, at this time I do not get a commission for lollipop purchases.)
I was sitting at my desk, working away, when my sweetie got back from the store. Being the heckuva guy I am, I offered to help carry supplies up to the apartment. I hauled a box up the stairs that contained, among other things, nine pounds of semi-sweet chocolate, ten pounds of sugar, twenty pounds of flour, and various dried fruit (including 4.5 pounds of raisins). Also included on this shopping trip was a few pounds of butter and some other yummy supplies.
Soon all this will be cookies!
Today as I showered it occurred to me that not long ago using four different cleansing products in one shower would have been noteworthy. Now I use shampoo, soap, face cleaner stuff (skin’s been healthier lately as a result), and for the beard I use body shampoo (it rinses out better). Yep, there are many ways to get clean.
Bath Desserts has all sorts of flavors of shower gels! Not to mention soaps and other stuff.
While I’m hardly unbiased, I have to say that these soaps and gels would make fabulous and unique gifts. That’s right: fabulous AND unique. Go check them out!
I picked up The God of Small Things
Near the beginning of the book (but not the beginning of the story) we are at the funeral of Little Sophie Mol, Loved from the Beginning. Something has happened, something Horrible, but even though it is only days past it has become Something No One Talks About. When Ammu, mother of two-egg twins, goes to the police station and says, “I killed him,” even the police do not want to talk about what happened anymore.
The language the author uses is playful, coining words and bending others to reflect the Indian ears that hear them. The language provides rays of light even when things are dark. In a way the whole book is a Muddled Ramble, a story that builds not through time but through the growth of the words themselves.
The story moves about in time, simultaneously tip-toeing up to the Horrible Events and drifting away through the aftermath. Before, we pass through the trip by the family to pick up Sophie Mol at the airport (cousin of the two-egg twins, Loved from the Beginning) and the events of that trip that set in motion the final run to the Horrible Events. After, we see a home with no life in it, the occupants slowly decaying or leaving, slowly dying. The family business long dead, the Bar Nowl that lived in the rafters of the pickle factory now just a pile of bones in an unused vat. Even the river, once powerful, is dead and sluggish. All that’s left is a pair of two-egg twins, one mute, separated for twenty years.
a) Anything can happen to Anyone.
b) It’s best to be prepared.
What ties all the threads of the narrative together, what really defines the flow of the story, are words. Special words, coined capriciously, that, as the story progresses, take on greater and greater weight, until some of them are almost breaking under the freight they must carry. Later. Lay. Ter. Only when the words are ready can the Horrible Events be told. And after the Horrible Events, there’s only one thing left to tell, one thing that had the power to drive all the rest.
This is the sort of writing that is both humbling and motivating, the sort of story I aspire to write—if I had the courage to really let go. Read this book; you won’t be sorry.
Note: if you use the above link to buy this book (or a Kindle
“How’s the writing going?” People often ask me. “Not bad,” I answer, “but the selling isn’t going so well.” The problem is that I would much rather spend time writing a new story than trying to get someone to pay for a story I’ve already written. What I needed, I decided, was a way to keep track of where each story had been submitted and where next it should go. I had a partial implementation of that in place, but I thought maybe if there was something available at a glance right up there on the wall I’d do a better job keeping up.
Lo and behold! A precise measure of my slacking.
Meanwhile, I’m working on a story that starts out with several separate threads that converge. Getting the timing right between the different bits has been a challenge, even with software that lets me rearrange bits easily. I thought to do color-coded post-its that I could rearrange, but first I needed to go out and buy the damn sticky notes. My sweetie was also dubious about the glue marks the sticky notes would leave all over the walls. She suggested a bulletin board.
Naturally I did nothing about these ideas, but last week I went to a friend’s house to mix beer and heavy machinery. When I got back the wall over my desk was adorned with two new features, already mounted on the wall and awaiting my pleasure. What a great surprise! The bulletin board is closer to my desk, as is fitting for its more interactive purpose while I write, while I only have to glance up and to my left to see how I’m progressing with submissions for my current short stories.
Act One of Dark War. This will get a lot messier.
As far as the whiteboard goes, the stories listed cover everything from humorous flash horror to non-fiction, but most of the stories will fit at several of the markets listed across the top. Red X’s are rejections. Blue boxes are the markets to submit a story to next. Green dates indicate when I should hear back about a submitted story. As you can see, at this time only two of the eight stories are out there being read, with another awaiting a trip to the post office and another waiting for the reading period at the magazine. That’s two and two halves more than a week ago, so I have to say the system is succeeding so far.
On the bulletin board I have act one of Dark War. The threads are color-coded, and scenes that involve two threads are taped together with the significance to each thread spelled out separately. I will be finishing Dark War up as quickly as possible so I can spend the rest of the time before the World Fantasy Convention getting ready to sell The Monster Within. In the next day or two I’ll be compressing Act One up at the top of the board to make room for Act 2. Considering I’ve already written this damn thing twice, there sure is a lot of work to do.
But however much work there is to do, I have someone at my back who knows the best way to spur me on to greatness is to help me get the tools together to do my job well. That means a lot to me.
David is a nice guy and all, but the dude is a ninja. He’s heading to Japan shortly to demonstrate his true ninjosity. Wish him luck!
Edited to reflect facts: As I understand it now, David is going to compete first in Los Angeles to qualify to go back to Japan. All the more reason to wish him luck!
There are times I look at the product I’m putting out and there’s just no pretending. It’s not that good. Other times I read something I used to think was good and it turns out to be a disaster of poor communication. At times like that, it’s easy to think I suck. Not just think it, to know it to the core of my being. I suck. Suck, suck, suck! Nothing I write is any good and I’m just wasting my life trying to make a living at something I suck at.
It’s not a pretty thing.
It’s hard to work when you are absolutely certain you suck. What I need at times like that is some glimmer of hope that maybe, sometimes, on the best of days, a brief moment of not-sucking is possible, a fleeting flirtation with not-so-bad that can fuel the hope I need to create the next hyperbolic, rambling train wreck.
A long time ago, on one of my first-ever golf outings, I hit a magically beautiful shot. Now I think of that shot as I search through the cactus for my wayward ball. Most of my shots end up in painful places, but there’s always that one… Likewise, when I’m scrounging through the rough trying to find any reason to keep working on a story and by extension keep working at being a writer, I think of the good shots I’ve hit in my day. Those are the stories I go back and read when I need to get myself back to the happy place.
I’m nervous when people around me are reading my work, but last year I was with my dad as he read “The Tourist“. “That’s really good,” he said. I’m not sure it stands alone; it’s better I’m sure if you’re familiar with other Tin Can stories, but I read that and it still gets me. I really like that story. Oddly, I have a hard time putting my finger on why.
The story that started the series, that the good folk at Piker Press had to call to my attention, was “Tin Can“. It’s a simple story, but subtle enough it fooled me for a while.
Then there’s Crazy Blood. It’s been rejected, so maybe others don’t see what I see in it, but I read it tonight and I have to say that I am on occasion surprised at my own word choice. I haven’t the slightest idea who might pay me money for this story. Crazy Blood might appeal to no one but me, which begs the question of whether it’s an example of writing that demonstrates that I have what it takes to be a professional, but that’s OK.
A user of Jer’s Novel Writer sent me a message after reading “Serpent“. The title of the message was was “Holy Crap!” I was already happy with that one, but that unsolicited feedback didn’t hurt. It’s a cool story, a little clunky in spots I think now, but with a sweet conclusion. It will definitely and appear in my “Piker Years” anthology, after a couple of minor tweaks.
And the novel, The Monster Within, awaiting the latest set of revisions to make it something others can love as much as I do. I wrote the damn thing and I’ve never got tired of it.
Usually, when I’m feeling that every word I write is worthless drivel, I can read some of the above and tell myself, “no, only most of what I write is worthless drivel.” That seems to be enough to keep me going.
