Things to keep in mind:
The secret of dialogue.
Bear in mind as you write that the subject of the novel is what happens between people’s faces when they talk to one another.
—posted 5638 days ago
The week of sleeping in.
Podcastle has posted Tim Pratt’s “Bottom Feeding,” which I haven’t linked to until now because I had to help the Spouse rip everything out of our kitchen and then pack and then sleep for a couple of hours and then get on an airplane with a cranky seven-month-old (who was on her best behavior, which is rather sterling, but still: exhausting) and fly to New Jersey where we walked out to the Shore and ate spicy shrimp and drank margaritas with cousins and second cousins and a couple of matriarchs and a whole gaggle of pre-school girls.
So I slept in this morning. I imagine I’ll be sleeping in tomorrow morning, as well.
And I’d be getting some writing done, only if I sit right here on this couch and hold the laptop up a little I can just cadge the free wireless signal from across the street.
—posted 5657 days ago
The benefits of social media.
Just wanted to point out that if you were a member of the City of Roses Facebook group, it’d be easier to find certain special surprises and treats, is all.
—posted 5661 days ago
Appearances elsewhere.
Thaumatrope is a—a Twitterzine? “A magazine for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror fiction under 140 characters, available on your mobile phone via Twitter,” to quote their tag line. The 140-character restriction intrigued me—not so much tennis-with-a-net as tennis-in-your-pocket. (Um.) —I’m a big fan of negative space, of what isn’t said, perhaps because I’m so adamant about tucking exposition away out of sight where you don’t notice it exposing itself; 140 characters leaves a lot of room not to say something. So I’ve written a couple for them, and the one appeared back in March, and I was keeping my eye out for it but somehow I missed it, and anyway, here it is. —The other is slated for December 10, so help me remember that, okay?
Also, I read a story for Podcastle—“The Fantasy Fiction Podcast,” part of the Escape Artists along with Escape Pod and Pseudopod—called “Bottom Feeding,” written by Tim Pratt. It’s a chilly little phantastick, a riff on all those stories about Fionn mac Cumhail or was it Taliesin or maybe Gwion Bach and that dam’ salmon, only it isn’t a salmon this time, and Georgia ain’t Ireland. —Rachel asked Barry if he knew anybody who could read well with a Southern accent, and Barry, bless his heart, suggested me, despite the fact that despite the fact I was born in Alabama and spent most of my childhood south of the Mason-Dixon, I can’t “do” Southern to save my life. —Anyway, it’s slated to post on June 2, which is oh Christ Tuesday. So listen, if you like, then if you like discuss.
And I’ll be wandering around MoCCA again this year, which isn’t in the Puck Building but is at the 69th Regiment Armory instead, which I’ve never been to. Anyway, my beard’s bushier than last year and I’ll probably have a seven-month-old girl strapped to my chest, in case you want to say hi. —But I won’t have no. 7 done by then, as I’d hoped. (Yes. I am working on it. And no. 8, too. They come slowly, but they do come.) —For that, I’m afraid, you’ll have to wait until the Zine Symposium, knock wood and come hell or high water.
So that’s some of what I’ve been up to. How’ve you been?
—posted 5664 days ago
#SCF.
Oh, hey, is it Stumptown already? —We aren’t trying to herd any of those cats ourselves this year (herding a small child is chore enough), but we will be there, and by “we” I mean that Dylan Meconis and the Spouse have their usual table, and I’m as usual putting some roses out on a small corner of it. #120, apparently, which is toward the back of the room, but on a corner, behind Periscope Alley, beneath some sort of blood-spattered banner; swing by Saturday or Sunday (10 – 6; $6 either day, $10 both days) and I might just have a sip or two of gin for you. (A sip, mind. Not the full bottle. Not quite yet. Sigh.)
—posted 5705 days ago
Management does so hate to disappoint.
A recent Google search that washed up hereabouts:
naked woman sitting on a masonic compass
Provocatively specific, no? —I should probably mention I’m at Potlatch this weekend, but it’s mostly so the Spouse can talk about comics and SF and SF in comics, and can we take the bit where I mutter ingenuously about how bad I am at self-promotion as read and move on? Thanks.
(Yes, I am. No, not yet. I’ll let you know, honest. If I say April and it isn’t April I’ll just end up disappointing everyone, so I won’t say April. Nor August neither, but fuck me running if it is.)
—posted 5754 days ago
In which the author reveals the reason he is so chary of certain words.
It wouldn’t do to have one of these taken and replaced in the middle of the night, now, would it?
—Her birth is one of the reasons why it’s been so quiet hereabouts, and certainly the greatest or at least easiest to blame; the other of course being that we’re currently between fits. —No. 6 having come to an end, there’s naught to do but wait for no. 7, and while I’d like to say I’m busy writing it, well: I’m also busy changing diapers, painting walls, going back to work, and anyway, writing no. 7 right now still looks a lot like staring at the monitor. (It’s gonna be a complicated one. I’ve actually had to prepare an outline.)
While we’re waiting: Nick wants to know whether “the sentence-level prose is somehow optimized for an episodic format.” —Well, says I, not to speak overly of why the words that got written got written and not some other words, but: the sentence-level prose (I stop a moment to ask with only a little lilt: is there any other kind? —But we know what he means) is jiggered to reflect the experience of watching something happen. To the extent, then, that when we watch something happen the resulting narrative is optimized for an episodic format: yeah. (Maybe.) (The fine folks at Shadow Unit had much the same end in mind, but look! How our means have diverged!)
Other words, seen at sentence-level:
To their right, a long building roofed with felt.
Hardly enough to get a grip on anything at all, but still: I wanted to scratch at the translation with my red pencil:
To the right a long building roofed with felt.
Rude, perhaps, to want to tinker so with someone else’s words—much less someone else’s idea of yet another person’s words in a language one doesn’t know—but it is an occupational hazard, and if you’re going to do that to expository description, why not do it up all the way?
I’m willing to allow as how maybe it’s mostly just me.
—I’m also curious now to read and see if Stasiuk has as much contempt for his story as Esposito seems to think; I hope not. You ellipticate like this—you loop the lupine, as Algis Budrys or maybe it was Philip José Farmer once said about Gene Wolfe—not when you’re telling a dull tale whose details you find not terribly interesting or original (though that is a loaded term, here), but precisely because you’ve started to realize you love what you’re writing not wisely but too well.
Also? I do sometimes regret that I decided to go ahead and use quotation marks. (Honest. I do.) —Then, I am trying to be maximally accessible. Right? Aren’t I?
—posted 5836 days ago
Punches and babies; gin and beauty.
Let’s see: I got to attend Michael and Margo’s special day, where I threw a punch at a rival cultural studies professor; Taran needs about a month more basting before she’s done; the walls are coming down around our ears (so that the stairs might go up); and I thought I’d post the covers for the next two fits of City of Roses, since I’ve got them done:
No. 7: Gin-soaked
No. 8: Beauty
Now I just have to finish writing the dam’ things. —Oh, and I turned on comments. Poke about; say what you’d like where you like. Except the older stuff. Maybe I’ll flip them later.
—posted 5906 days ago
Lucky number.
So no. 6 is done, and this site goes back to fits and starts until I’ve got no. 7 where I want it to be. Which, considering I’ve just firmly laid the first paragraph in wet mortar and tamped it into place, may or may not be sooner or later than you think. (I hope it’s sooner than I think. I hope.)
Until then: subscribe to the RSS feed (or the LiveJournal feed, if that’s more your style). Join the Facebook group (or not, as you like; the red-headed stepchild, that is). Drop me a line, by all means. Feedback feeds back. Always remember that.
Gin; gin, and bicycles; four secrets (or five); what lives under the bridge—
(The drawing above being a birthday present from Bill Mudron, who also drew this picture of Jo Maguire.)
—posted 5916 days ago
Streetlife serenade.
It’s the note beside it that gets to me:
This is a “chewed up” piece of curtain that is part of the pink ruffled curtains that were Steph’s and the rabbits chewed them up when
—via Damn Portlanders
—posted 5926 days ago
