Thursday, May 31, 2018

No, I think it's more difficult for these things to capture the world, as opposed to a noisy subset of it. Just like basically no tv show will ever have the sort of global audience of The Tonight Show in the Carson era, or MASH, but can still be a significant hit in terms of audience, etc. There are many successful celebrities, or books or movies or what have you, that reach just fine without having anywhere near the overall reach that their progenitors did.

Not that this was ever universal. One need only consider that, for example, ten percent of the US audience had a rather different view of the world than did the ninety percent majority. Jack Johnson just getting his pardon after all these years illustrates the flip side of this (Muhammad Ali shows that this particular divide was not impermeable; Bill Russell, Hank Aaron, and Jackie Robinson that the permeability could be selective in what it let through at any given time).

Still, once you take into account the color divide, the machinery of it was still pretty general. How celebrity operated, who it worked to reach and how it was used to make art, money, power. And the divide weakens, in fits and starts and oh so slowly, but there is yet hope while we live, right?

Ok, now where does it go, when you can reach out and touch the world?

No clue, have I, no idea here except that celebrity is now no one thing. It's not even multi-faceted, in the way that say Frank Sinatra or Louis Armstrong could be both intensely private and public simultaneously.

It's multi-component, now. Mixing, matching, in flux. Divorced from money and power one minute, inalterably wrapped up in it the next.

Still always dangerous to the ones who attempt to ride the wave. That part I think will always exist where adulation is sought, and returned.

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

I can't help feeling today that I'd rather be water skiing.

Perfectly natural, of course, given the tempertures around here. Problem being, tuck in the office doing the things that pay the bill prevents it. Ah, well. At least the writing goes well.

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

And the heat creeps up on us. There are the annual worries about water, hurricanes, all the fun stuff that comes with living on the Gulf and being caught in the vise.

It's enough to make one long for a cold drink, a hammock, and shady place to park both. Unfortunately, our back yard is a good few years away from that possibility. I cooked a brisket this weekend, but copped out and put it in the oven on 270F as soon as it had reached its good color stage.

That'll change eventually when our shade trees catch up, but until then I regret nothing! Going out and playing with the fire in Texas as the summer catches up to us is not my idea of a fun time. I'd rather just let the coals wind down and go find something else to do besides tend the fire. Besides, the oven's a lot less work.

Monday, May 28, 2018

predictions, for so far in the future they are most likely untranslateable:

For a significant part of the universe, we (homo sapiens sapiens and descendants) will be known colloquially (and scientifically in at least a few latin equivalents) as "The Onion Eaters" due to the ubiquity of that humble plant in our food planet-wide (all onion relatives here included)...

To another subset of the known universe, we'll be known as "The Egg Eaters" for similar reasons. For this group, many of them will use this fact to terrify their children at night...

We will accidentally poison the Nth alien ambassador to human sub-space by using parsley, basil, cilantro, or some other common herb in the dish served in their honor, through a completely unpredictable allergy to the herbs of the human kitchen garden...

Friday, May 25, 2018

A Friday afternoon filled, not precisely with doldrums, but certainly with an element of making it through the day. Good day for writing on Peace Offer, I don't know how to measure that feeling but it definitely has entered that stage, the home stretch, where the details of the writing itself just fly by in the doing.

I think that's the "ok, you've done the work to get to this point, the characters and the place and their doings have made themselves and brought things here, hold on writer because this is the point where there's nothing but the observation and get it down as it goes by."

Thursday, May 24, 2018

(scattering into the inner spaces)

Sink down, focus on the end of your nose. No, there; ok maybe not. Try it this way instead? Think in terms of logic and the change lost behind the couch cushion. The space that's always not there except when you find something that you hadn't even known you lost.

There, now you know what to think of. Problem being, what was it we were talking about in the first place? Not what happened yesterday, though I'll admit it was a bit wild to see Zach doing the chicken dance in front of Wilhemina like that. I wonder whether she wanted to call security or his boss.

What? Just because you think it's important doesn't mean I have to. Oh, really? What if it was your mother coming? Uh-huh, that's what I figured. Look, she's going to be here for a weekend, it's not like what happened when we got married.

No, I didn't ask her to stay again. Yes, she's got plans next week with Aunt Paula, they're meddling in ReAnne's wedding plans and aren't you glad you stayed out of that mess? See, she's got plenty of things to get her back on the road and out of our hair.

Besides, you're just talking about her because you don't want to talk about Roberta. Right, about that grade. I know you told her it wasn't a big deal, everyone has a bad couple weeks now and then, but come on. Now's the time when the admission committees start paying attention.

No, I'm not treating her like that, give me a little credit. I'm just making sure that we're keeping up with her, that's all. I don't want anything slipping between the cracks.

See what I did there? Ok, put down the frying pan, I'm just making a joke, come on.

I know, I know. How's about I make it up to you? Seems I had the chance to book our vacation trip...

(? Don't ask me, I'm still trying to figure out where this came from myself...)

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

(electronic fogs: old beasts newly flogged)

Considerations
 of
  alternative                               the random waiting.
   means, drifting along in         Mostly it's just    Anticipatory
    the                                         back at you.          lack of motion
     void                                      staring                 isn't a drag
      which doesn't mean a beast nastily                   friction in

the fluid.

Sometimes the beast is you, sometimes it's the thing that won't go
away when you turn off the lights and try for the drift away thing called sleep.

It's always waiting, one way or another. Talk to it, beg for

something. Regardless, there you are.

Staring.

Hoping and feeling the hope drain away like madness over the ocean. Tentacles
would be a blessed relief too bad they're cartoons now, random weird little
business floating up on Google in the interstitials. Another horror reduced
to triviality by nothing so much as the passage of time.

Try to read the passage on the backs of the waves and not laugh 'til bitter
tears run down your face.

Bits and bytes and flitters of random noise in the database, do you hear them?
Such rushing at light speed, so fleeting a glimpse of... whatever it is
wouldn't have sent them running a hundred years past, what mad machines have
sunk their teeth into
wires
unmade?

What? Mad us, mad generations past
  screaming in
  ... delight ...
    telegrams STOP when unkeyed
    except for the buzz buzz bzzzzzzz of
     the empty line.

What did the key operator do when it clicked, instead?

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Watching the PBS Great American Read, they're discussing all the favorites that they've put together.

The best part of this thing is ditching any idea of 'best' or 'quality', whatever that means or doesn't. They're just talking about what people love about the stories.

The ones you like, the ones you don't (yes that one and that one and that one too). The point here is always that, whatever an abstract view of a book is, what some call good or bad or what have you, is meaningless.

Any story out there is someone's favorite, or maybe not even favorite, it can still be a well-loved story that gets pulled down from the shelf on occasion and revisited.

That's touching someone, and that's all that a story needs for reason to exist. What happens when I'm sitting down and enjoying the writing of it, I put it out there and cross my fingers that there await a special group who've never known that the story I send winging out there is just the one they need.

Monday, May 21, 2018

I write little for the blog today, we've a boxer who's overnighting at the vet's office so she can have her gums worked on tomorrow; additionally I had good news from the day gig front. So really, a day of highs and lows.

I did get my words in for the day on the book in progress, Peace Offer is still rolling along and fun, though I scrambled a bit in the current stage of it until I realized (I think) where the motion is leading to in the moment.

Sunday, May 20, 2018

Dean W. Smith's getting wound up to do a post on the way writing focus and business focus can interfere with each other for pro writers. This is a comment I left on his leadup post:

I have my own suspicions about how "product" takes over from the writing, but I also suspect that you're going to hit most of the same points I would. Some of it at least hits similar buttons across all types of business, an addiction to advertising and 'push' is pretty universally a sign that the business owner may be focusing on things outside of what really makes the business work.

In a very important sense, I'm very glad that I'm still working a day gig, at least with respect to this particular point. I have only so much time out of my day to devote to writing and all the other stuff surrounding it. By far, I'd rather be writing new stories than any of the other crap. It's not even close.

I also wonder how much of this is the constant 'ding' of the smartphone. It's easy enough to close your email browser on the computer, turning off the e-leash and finding anything at all else to do besides chase the momentary rush can be extraordinarily difficult.

I've seen people quit smoking more easily than walk away from the pull of social media. Look at what happened with twitter; as soon as the writer community at large realized how much of a time sink that thing is, instagram and tumblr and so on were standing in the wings waiting for the next e-generation to come along.

Friday, May 18, 2018

It's funny sometimes how life melds with story. For me, it's not the "I'm hiding friends and relations in my fiction", though I will admit that there are little hooks that some would recognize.

See, for the past couple of projects, where I'm at for the moment is a fun-house mirror view of a piece here, a phrase there. Not the "that's so going in a story" thing, more like "hey, let's crank that 180 degrees, turn it up to 11, and then how do things go?"

It's the observer side of the gig. Smells, sights, sounds, actions and words. They hang around for years, and I never thought of some things as being significant. Oh, sure, I could remember, but my feel for what's important "personally" versus what's material for a story is a whole different kettle of fish.

When I need material, it's amazing what suddenly becomes important. I realize that my catch-bin in the back of my head, where I put the experiences away to peruse later, holds many many surprises.

What will I see today that will return to me years from now, different dress different rhythm and entirely different setting and people, but carrying nonetheless the power of today's moment and my connection to stories yet untold?

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Drop into the slot and slide away,
 winding route to gravity's artistic side
  pat on the head, nod to least resistance, open,
 don't blink. Hands and feet in the ride at all
times, please. Smile for the camera.

Winds push 'em back, hold 'em up.
 Nervous energy says take 'em back.
  The lady behind screams like she's giving her firstborn
  to Coyote. With extra bits from the younger
 one thrown in. Just in case.
He's in the back seat. Howling his laughter.

Blast away the pipe, it's a twist and
 a turn a juke and a jive, hold it. Pause, clank.
  Clank clank clank here we go kids we're all going
 to it but this is the express lane hang on for your
life, but leave it all to hang out one last pass

before throwing back our heads and screaming
 delight. It's done, we live. Just that little bit

more

Wednesday, May 16, 2018

I'm not sure I want to count up how many words I've written in the past couple days.

That's because the vast majority of those words these past two days have been writing for the day gig. Now, I did get at least some words in on the current story, Peace Offer, but it was fairly minimal.

It's still rolling along just fine, I'm definitely having fun with it as I enter the home stretch. Plus, even a few hundred words of fiction is a very good thing indeed when I'm hip deep in the non-fiction tech writing stuff. And no, I don't have the urge to cross the streams and insert random paragraphs between the two.

Assuming I'm keeping track of which editor window refers to which project...

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

I tripped over something else reading all the other comments in that thread over at Dean Smith's place. This is the comment I left when I thunk of it.

We're the ones who get to discover a million new ways to answer "now what happens?". There's no such thing as a wrong answer (well, except for the one that doesn't get written...)

Extended digression on the mechanics of plate tectonics (hello Michener...)

Where's the peyote? (Hunter S. Thompson)

Aunt Marge comes to visit... somebody let a troll loose in the dungeon (Rowling)

Let's throw in an extended gross-out revenge joke (King, The Body aka Stand By Me) or, maybe the evil monster is really a million year-old alien spider from Beyond (It) or what happens if someone sets off a bomb in the closet (The Stand)...

Too literary? Bring in the zombies. Not literary enough? What's the heroine think when she sees butterflies hovering over a field of flowers (or moonlight on an open ski run)? Maybe someone sends our hero a polite (and oddly worded...) email to visit their humble country home in a hidden part of Romania.

Know the ending? Write it backwards. Columbo enters saying, "Oh, there's just one more thing..." and now, ok how did he get there? And what did the crook do to try and throw him off?

It can be as outrageous as we can imagine, or as subtle. Play with symbolism, invent a language (on the fly no going off to write a dissertation), look for a portal to one hundred years in the past that someone left sitting in the third booth over in the diner and don't ask the waitress on the night shift, she's lost three customers this week...

It's all on the table, *at any time in the story*. The only thing we have to know is what keeps us hooked on the story. What brought our butts to this chair, and how do we keep it bouncing along 'til the end?

Monday, May 14, 2018

(a comment I left at Dean Wesley Smith's place, talking about working with the
creative voice in writing a story)

I throw this out there in case it might help anyone else get a feel for one way to interpret what I understand you to mean by following the creative voice in this way:

For me at least, this is the voice that says "And then what happens?" Big-eyed, a three-year old's wonder at the story and where it's going. That's where the magic lives. And then what happens... and then what happens...

Here's one way I've found to capture it. Grab a copy of The Hobbit, and read a chapter out loud, to yourself, to the dogs or the cats or the empty air, one per night. Take your time, do it right, use voices and everything or just go for rolling along and getting carried up. Either way, the wonder of it is waiting there to catch you up.

Another one that worked for me is Dune. The opening of each chapter, with the Irulan quotes, every night settling in... that's magic.

My daughter, when we were first teaching her to read, was fascinated by me reading an illustrated version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to her. She wanted that story every night. If you've ever wondered what that book was doing in the pantheon, there's one way to find the power of it if you've never otherwise gotten hooked. The full text version, it's when the creature pontificates, rails against his creator in full rolling glory, or promises that he'll be there on the wedding night, that's where the whole flight takes off.

I'll quit my rambling, but that's where I am with this at the moment, learning to listen for that magic question... and then what happens?

Thursday, May 10, 2018

(huh. it's a funny old business this. Thinking about the work in progress,
and one of the characters, and this just popped up. It's about ten years before
the events of Peace Offer begin...)

A sheltered little cove at sunrise, the waves rolling in from the open ocean
cascade off the breakwater. Here in the cove, they're gentle swells yet, the
light coming in from overland just starting to color the darkness of them.

Two old pelicans, edging on to gentlemen of leisure status, float on the
swells. Bill especially is worried about his feathers. Drying out is work,
don't you know. "Hey, Ted," he whispers to his companion.

Ted's more worried about the ache in his joints. "Bill, there's time yet."

"Rollers will come."

"We can wait."

And so they wait, Bill not quite stretching his wings, more just holding them
up above the gathering energy of the water. Hopefully. "Ready yet?"

"Not yet." Ted's eyes are mostly closed, he's not quite bouncing yet, just
sloughing side to side as the rollers move him. But he is starting to have
trouble keeping square to what will, soon enough, be waves.

Out of nowhere, way too soon for the conditions, a true breaking wave passes
the opening of the jetties and heads for the pelicans. "Ted, you see it?" Bill
stretches his wings fully, then cocks them, ready.

Ted just nods, pushes his cranky joints 'til the wings open, cocks them back,
and then the two of them cast off for the sky.

As they turn back over the beach, Ted's complaining. "And I'd just about
worked it out."

"What's that?"

"Turbulent flow. I've been working on the transition point, as you know, Bill."

Bill dipped his beak. Ted's project was one of long standing. He'd gotten the
idea from an old professor who like to take her lunch break on the beach they
were flying over. "I'm still working through the EPR paradox." Bill had
picked that one up listening in to the physics department lectures.

They had the happy habit of leaving the windows open in good weather. "There was
another Bell's inequality experiment reported last week, the grad students
are all arguing over the error bars."

Soon enough, the beach ran out beneath them as they headed over to their
favorite breakfast spot.

Beneath, a young boy and his father were walking along the beach, hand in
hand. "Dad?"

"Yessir?"

"What's turbulence?"

His dad, an architect by training, didn't stumble too badly over giving the
not quite five-year old a basic idea. The waves breaking over the rocks
offshore helped quite a bit.

When his dad ran out of steam, they finished their walk and headed back up
to the hotel room.

The child smiling the whole way. At the birds' conversation.

And, most especially, that the waves had finally responded to his quiet
request.

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

(a song of trouble and trial...)

So me and my girl
  lookin for a whirl
See a little froggy
  bumpin down the path

Dude, said I, which way to the Hop?

and he replied,

Just slide on over to the left
  and jump a little right
 Twist by the bar
  where you can get a little tight

Which set us on the path
 gave us a little light
Went by the place
 and spent all of the night

Just a slidin to the left
 and jumpin to the right
 Twistin by the bar
  and gettin more than tight

Came the day when my girl
 abjured me for a fool
Said I'd left the path of righteousness
 when I conjured up a rule

I don't understand her metaphysics
 I'll admit she's ahead of me
But I know when it all went down
 I just had to keep on...

Sliding away to the left
 and trippin on the right
Don't always get to the bar these days
 but when there I can get a little tight...

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

the
   play
   of
   thought
   necessary

to
   sliding down
     the pole
      and
     not
   crashing groin

first
   into the agony
   of
   life.

Comes at the rolling pace of a steamroller.

Don't
   stop to pick
   up
   the penny.

Monday, May 7, 2018

So, as you can see I've posted the page for The Boyar's Curse, the permanent page that's going to scroll off the bottom of the page, and the floating link over in the sidebar where I've listed my books. If it interests you, buy a copy or three for yourself and friends, or if it doesn't, that's cool too, though I'll always appreciate it if you run into anyone that it sounds like it would appeal to if you'd send it on to them.

I'll have the paperback version of it up soon, though this is another one of those weeks where my schedule's a little hosed. At least this time it's just meetings and such.

Yesterday, a semi-retired professor with a hobby in the curious and the odd discovers something he didn't expect at all. Something he'd given up hoping for a lifetime ago.

A thousand years ago, an old warrior, his adopted daughter, and their friend from the other side of the world run for their lives. They are hunted, and the only place to hide is the last remaining bastion of the old gods, those whose time is running out.

How are they all connected?

This is the story of The Boyar's Curse...

The Boyar's Curse is available in ebook from all your favorite retailers and distributors, including Lulu, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble (Nook), and Amazon (Kindle). (Draft2Digital as well, but their universal link isn't yet active)

The paperback version is currently in progress, the link will be added as the paperback becomes available.

Saturday, May 5, 2018

And staying on pace for my self-imposed return to daily keyboard time. I'm not posting much about the numbers, but basically yesterday was 500 words of fiction or thereabouts, today 750, tomorrow and the day after 1000 and then a break and start it over again. That makes me a lightweight, at least in comparison to those who make their living as fiction writers.

But I'm not counting my lines of programming or report/non-fiction writing in that number. If I did, odds are good that all in I'm in that 4000 words or equivalent. I definitely know that I've spent on average something close to 8 hours a day at the keyboard for more than twenty years.

I tell you this so that you've got some idea of where I am so far as a writer of fiction. Now, fingers crossed, I have my hopes about where I'll be later in this year, at least in terms of the daily fiction production. I hear changes a coming in how my day gig life is structured. If they come out, one of the benefits I'll have will be a different schedule and butt in seat time, the end result of which will be a shift to more fiction time, simply because it'll be available. Hope is a good thing, right?

Now, all that said, my bout of wrist warning was most likely induced by a round of spring household chores over the past couple weeks. That's an additional killer, you can be good and dutiful all you want to about pacing and keyboard time and so on, and then screw it all up by spending a few hours hammering or raking or what have you.

Or to put it another way, it's a hell of a thing getting old and listening to your joints creak, feel them ache, to the point where I know when a cold front's coming. Such is life, and I ain't whining. I just hope that if there's anyone else out there battling this sort of thing, we can all commiserate a little and feel a bit better about not being the 4000 word per day fiends we all might have been in another life without arthritis, tendinitis, bad backs, and so on.

Keep on trucking, day by day by little bit of day. It all adds up. And if life hands me the opportunity to reschedule and up my daily fiction?

I'll accept it as the blessing it is and keep on keeping on, I promise you.

Friday, May 4, 2018

The last time I had a bought of tendinitis, the worst part was losing the plot on work of all sorts, both the day gig and the fiction writing I was in the middle of. Fortunately, this time I don't quite have that problem.

Which made the quota of words I limited myself to today on Peace Offer was a little bit of torture. I want to go on with it, the words sing and call to me and drive me to put in just a line more, just another page.

And I can't. I know better, from experience. The story will still be there, though, it's waiting and calling to me. So I distract my self with gedanken thoughts for the day gig. Which is another form of work, of course, but it's also a way to make sure I'm not disengaged next time I sit down to write, tomorrow tomorrow, you can all wait for me just a few more hours oh voices in my head...

Thursday, May 3, 2018

As mentioned yesterday, today was an off day for me to be away from the keyboard. A bit of running around for chores and such, so a day for me to take advantage of by giving my wrists a break.

Tomorrow, a light day, I've a few bookkeeping chores on the computer, and I'll put in some writing fiction time, but restrict it, Saturday as well but a little more, Sunday off again, and then ramp up slowly next day by day next week. It's pretty much the same sort of regime as I'd do for physical therapy or such.

So, any writers or programmers out there, listen to your body. If you wouldn't go out and try to run a marathon blind, know when your body's talking to you. This type of work doesn't necessarily have the sort of physical dangers that iron workers or loggers have, but that doesn't mean we're free and clear, either. If you lose your wrists, or back or elbows or whatever, you've lost your moneymakers, and it's a painful road to get them back.

I've been working with computers for a good long while now, and I had the chance to see my boss many years ago deal with a bad bout of tendinitis, so I learned what could happen if I didn't watch it, and most of all, learn when I need to pace myself in order to recover properly. It never hurts to take some time and think about how you might do it if you ever find yourself in the same boat.

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

My wrists have forced me to take tonight off from some of the chores. I've mentioned it before, it's one of the reasons that I'm a little slow ramping up on things like word counts and such, the daily gig, the one that pays the bills to date has to come first on some days. I have a bunch of keyboard time for that this week, and I mistimed how much of it I spent on writing and publishing work yesterday.

And now my wrist is letting me know about it.

So, a post to let you know about the State of the Writer, as it were, but no extras in terms of the links post for The Boyar's Curse, the main page for it where I'll organize everything once I have all the active links for the various retailers where I've put it up. Tomorrow, especially since I've got the chance to stay away from the keyboard on the day gig side.

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Well, I was going to post another excerpt for The Boyar's Curse today, but instead I think I'm instead going to post the cover...



I'm in the middle of the publishing part of things, so check back often for links to where you can buy it when it goes live...