Well, with glee I can say I finally am back on track with the writing. For the moment I have set side the storyon which I’d been working for weeks, and am getting a crit from one person on the rough state of the story in the hope that it will help me with the editing to come, probably a week or so from now. While I cannot speak for its quality, I can say something of a new development in the process, which is that this story was quite a struggle. I think this is the case for a …
Category: WRITING
Shouldn’t Have Had That Coffee…
I decided this evening, after cleaning up my home relatively well and getting some othert stuff done, that I would go out and write. Ended up at Starbucks over at Bucheon Station, because it’s by the cinema and I wanted to see the Wolverine film. (I did. It was pretty good, though even if it is an origins story, I’m afraid it’s a film with no ending. And I wanted a satisfying ending.) Anyway, I got some productive writing and editing on the WIP (Work in Progress) done, though I’m not going to go into it except to say I’m …
WIP: “The Biggest Sarge Ever”
This is one of those updates that writers who blog sometimes write. However, I’m getting a kick out of my current WIP, to which I added about a thousand words this morning. It’s a tough project, partly because I’m trying to blend two different kinds of jargon — futuristic environmental and technical stuff (the SFnal part) with futuristic extrapolations of the Pick-Up Artists’ scene (the cultural/flavoring/comedic part, riffing heavily on Neil Strauss’s popular and widely-reference book The Game). Since, from what I’ve read, there are lots of nerds and geeks in that subculture as it is, I figured, why not …
Linky Stuff
Linky stuff is less fun than kinky stuff, from what I vaguely recall, but hey, this is the internet and we’ll take what we can get, right? When I was playing in a local student big band in Saskatoon, the guy on second tenor was the funniest person I’d met up until then. His name was Jason — I can’t remember his family name, but he was Jason the tenor player — and he once said of his job at a video store, “Man, I was so busy today I didn’t have time to take a sh*t!” Suffice it to …
Launch Pad, Here I Come!
I’m just trying to get tickets booked — it’s harder than I thought! — but since Mike Brotherton has announced the list of attendees for this year’s Launch Pad Workshop, and since I’m one of them, I figured it would be remiss if I did not include an expression of heartfelt glee here as well. We weren’t asked to keep it to ourselves that we’d be going, but I figured I’d wait until the announcement went out, just the same. Also, I’ve been pinching my arm to make sure it’s real. If you take a look at the list of …
People Looking for Good Stories
I’m working on a few things, for these and others, but I figured I’d mention them, since readers might have something that fits: Jetse de Vries’ Shine Anthology submissions period is crawling closer. He’s looking for Optimistic SF set in the near future — see the Shine Anthology Blog for more information about what “Optimistic” means, and the anthology guidelines here. He’s also taking twitterfic submissions for the Outshine feed. Ahmed A. Khan is looking for fiction for two anthologies, one titled “Cheer Up, Universe” (feel-good SF), and the other a YA (pre-teen) anthology titled “Fun Times in Andromeda”. More …
Lester Young Podcast Live @ Starship Sofa!!!
Yes, here it is! Tony at Starship Sofa has posted this week’s podcast, which includes a wonderful dramatic reading by J.J. Campanella of my Asimov’s novelette “Lester Young and the Jupiter’s Moons’ Blues.” The cover art for this issue is an excellent scene from the story by artist Skeet Scienski (who also has an audio segment on genre art!) — I’m blown away by that art, man! — and the story is introduced by Sheila Williams, the editor of Asimov’s SF! (I also do a little outro on the background for the story.) There’s also poetry by Bruce Boston, and …
Diet Soap #3! (Get One Free!)
Diet Soap #3 is finally out! It includes my poem “Tian Ju Zhao,” which is the first poem ‘ve published in ages. (Though a couple more will be showing up in a future issue of Diet Soap.) There’s a heck of a lineup too, including none other than Howard Waldrop! You can pay to download or get a print copy at Lulu, but there’s a special offer on, at least at the time of writing, where you can request a free copy of the current issue in PDF format (presumably to see whether you like it enough to subscribe). Might …
噬 (shì)?
I’m looking for a Mandarin word I could use as a translation of “devour.” It ought to have a visceral feeling, though it’s a word used by a Chinese ghost hunting the Japanese bioweapon experimenter who killed him with bubonic plague (or some similar horrific illness) in Manchuria back during the war. It’s the final finishing touch on a story I want to send out as soon as possible, maybe even tomorrow. I’ve tried a few online dictionaries but I don’t know any Mandarin at all, so I don’t trust any of the results. I’ve emailed/twittered a few Chinese speakers, …
Back in One Piece, More or Less
I’m back in Korea. I should have left my camera at home: Fukuoka was rainy and grey, and though being there was pleasant, I didn’t feel like shooting any pictures, so the camera was just unnecessary weight. Will never again travel with my big huge brown briefcase: it’s just too heavy. One other annoyance was that my netbook was useful for writing, but not for getting online. With the exception of my (landline, not wifi) hotel room, I couldn’t get online anywhere in town. Granted, when I got home I discovered that the wifi capacity on my iPod touch had …