Resolutions
...for 2006
Less clutter and finishing things.
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December 31, 2005
Writing stats
I would be embarassed to post my actual writing stats, if I kept track of them, which I don't.
However, I sold two stories this year
--Magic in a Certain Slant of Light, which was published in Strange Horizons in March, and
--46 Directions, None of them North, which will be in the March, 2006 issue of Asimovs
This is double my sales for previous years, and I am very pleased about both of them but, really, not much activity for a whole year.
Toward the end of the year I had a couple of 'close but no cigar...yet' responses and I've spent the last three months or so not finishing a single damned thing.
But, of course, I'm going to finish a story a month in 2006.
Dogs of the Year
I haven't posted much about dogs lately.
Billie's seizures have been difficult to control and though I'm not yet at the stage of being even cautiously optimistic, I am willing to admit that things appear to be going in a positive direction. Part of the frustration is that the medication has made her very ataxic, which one might not notice in a less active dog and if it was less icy outside, but is very noticeable with her. This is getting much better lately as is the excessive drinking and the urine leaking (from the excessive drinking and the being too dopey to notice). Also, of course, I have adjusted. I let her out more often and am working on changing the way she jumps into the car (she prefers to stand right by the rear of the car and jump straight up, but this doesn't actually work anymore and results in much crashing and banging and swearing).
There are some other behavior issues that I'm hoping will also get better (separation anxiety--though only in certain circumstances, small stressy behaviors, not as relaxed in the car). And I still have my fingers crossed for steadily more time between seizures.
On the other hand, she is tracking really well--very good nose and very focused (except for falling over occasionally). She is very happy to go for walks and play and greet people in pet stores. I was grieving one day because I finally admitted that I might never have my Billie back, but I'm gradually becoming more optimistic about that as well.
John Henry continues to do well. It's been almost eight months since he broke his leg, which is very good. He gets around well, even on the ice--and my back yard is for crap right now--the iciest it's been in years, so both of them fall down a lot, which drives me crazy, because I'm afraid they're going to hurt themselves. The last three weeks or so I haven't taken him for a walk in the mornings because it's dark and I know that it's icy and I am worried about injuries, but I've been taking him out later in the day when I'm not working so he's still getting some walks in.
I hope for both of them a better year in 2006, but I'm very happy that they are with me right now at the end of 2005 and able to do the things they love to do.
I bought myself a digital camera this year for Christmas and it's finally shipped (it was out of stock when I ordered it) so I may finally get some actual dog pictures posted.
Fireworks, redux
After cutting 2,100 words out of the fireworks story, I've gotten it back up to 4,000 words and I think it is finally going in a reasonable direction (this may, of course, be false optimism on my part--time, as they say, will tell).
December 30, 2005
Perfect Pitch?
According to this test, I have excellent pitch.
My former choir master would be so surprised...
...via Mind Hacks
December 29, 2005
Regarding the Fireworks story...
Dear Muse,
I have cut 2,100 words out of this story in one fell swoop and it is 150% better already.
So there.
Write when you get work.
Sincerely,
Me
More Sex
Kelly Link and I published our first stories the same year. Despite this auspicious beginning, her career has been a tad more successful than mine.
After carefully analyzing a statistically significant bunch o' Kelly's stories, I have come to the conclusion that this is mainly because her stories have more sex in them than mine.
So this coming year my stories will be containing more sex.
Except the fireworks story, which you'd think would have sex in it, but doesn't.
Story-a-Month
Chance has already mentioned this so my hopes of keeping it a secret and pretending I never said anything are limited.
Anyway, I'm going to finish a story a month (at least) this year. This isn't that lofty a goal--I mean, not like Bear who finishes, like, a story a minute (okay, not a story a minute because she just pubbed her writing stats for the year, but damned impressive)--but it is my single writing goal for the year--finishing things--so it's good to know what success might look like.
(and if I write a lot of sentences like that last one, my success should be pretty much guaranteed)
Ice and Horses and Hauling Logs
...wherein I actually discuss music, something you will almost never see me do.
So, I like the group Great Big Sea, which does Newfoundland traditional music, and some music that could be described as Celtic and some popular stuff. Their latest album, The Hard and the Easy is very much Newfoundland traditional and I like it.
However, there are two (count 'em, two!) songs on this album about horses that haul logs out onto the ice and and the ice breaks and they drown (there may actually be more than two because I haven't listened carefully to every lyric in every song, but there are definitely two of them).
I can't help thinking if this were an anthology, the editor would be writing back to someone saying, "I'm sorry, although yours is well-written, we've already bought a 'horse hauling logs falls through thin ice and drowns' story for this anthology."
December 28, 2005
As you know, Bob...dialogue is, like, when characters talk to each other
I'm reading The Samurai's Daughter, a mystery by Sujata Massey. I've always enjoyed her mysteries, but I haven't read any for a few years and so have missed the last three or four. She writes a good story, but I'd forgotten in the interim that one of the reasons I hadn't gone out of my way to search them out is because her dialogue is really reek-a-riffic:
[the main character, Rei, talking to her father at lunch]
"...Now, Dad, where were we? The ten grave precepts of Buddhism. The ones your grandfather felt were so important to live by. I thought it was interesting that he had them on display."
"Yes they were recorded on a calligraphy scroll. I think it originally came from a monastery, but it hung in the office where he worked. Unfortunately, I don't know where it is now."
"Do you recall, approximately, what it said?"
"The precepts. You know them, don't you?"
I rolled my eyes. "I know some of them, but not all. You didn't raise me Buddhist, remember?"
"But you did take an Eastern religions class at Berkeley, yes?"
"It was so long ago, Dad. Just tell me. This is an oral history project, not a go-to-the-library project. I remember the first one..."
The dialogue is all about the information and not even a little bit about the characters or their current emotional state. And the interesting thing is that it's not likely to bother a lot of readers because if you don't have a particular ear for dialogue then you won't mind that all the chracters sound alike and that they convey information to each other that they already know, as long as it doesn't actively interfere with the story. This doesn't. It does, in its clumsy way, move the story forward at least.
But because the dialogue generates no interest on its own, the story has to be good enough to carry on narrative alone--there isn't anything else there for the reader to latch onto.
Writers don't have to be good at every tool: dialogue, setting, plot, pretty words, etc. But the fewer tools you have available, the stronger each one of them has to be.
Life Bites
Today is my fiftieth birthday.
I am not going to be depressed today, because, really, what's the point? But, looking back, it is clear that I have managed to do an astounding amount of nothing in fifty years.
On the plus side, I have a good education, a job that pays well, I own my own home, I own my own business, I am an SF writer and I have sold stories to some of the top magazines in the business. I don't feel 'old.' I am in decent physical shape (by which I mean I could be in better shape, but there's nothing preventing me from getting there). I find there there is a tremendous amount that I want to learn and read and do.
On the negative side, I hate my job. It is the kind of job that masquerades as professional but really isn't, is stressful and busy but not intellectually rewarding and I have stayed in it long enough that in a credential driven world my best, possibly only, opportunity for a different job is to get one just like this one that maybe pays a little better. I have sold exactly seven stories over the last ten years, which means I am in a sort of professional limbo where no one knows who I am, but I am not a new writer (in the world of SF short stories, this doesn't really matter--write more good stories, get more stories published, and then, one hopes, people know--but it's where I am at the moment). I am too anxious, too easily stressed, too indecisive and I procrastinate too much. I am tired of being invisible.
And although it is cloudy and gloomy and sort of, but not quite, raining, I am going to take my dog for a walk and reflect on the fact that I am here, that many of the things that vex me are in my control, and that tomorrow really is another day.
Writing Bites
--The fireworks story (which, as per usual, has no fireworks in it) is currently the most totally stupid story I have ever written. And this includes the singing Rottweiler story.
--All I ever really wanted to do was write plotty adventure stories (all right, maybe not all, but one thing). Inevitably, this is the sort of story that I'm not particularly good at.
--Waking Up Dead in Iowa,Tanny and the Bruiser, In Lieu of Flying Monkeys,The Impact of Light have all reached the stage of being remarkably stupid stories, though not as stupid as the fireworks story. In the Aftermath of Rain and Mountains Too Close to the Sun remain just this side of stupid. Other stories are currently lurking in neutral territory.
--My single writing goal for the year is to finish things.
December 25, 2005
Wishing You and Yours all the Joy
...of this holiday season.
Hope your day is filled with happiness and celebration.
December 24, 2005
Best Christmas Movie Line
My vote is for:
Madam, I am not in the habit of substituting for spurious Santa Clauses
from the original Miracle on 34th Street
In the spirit of the holiday season (and also because I upgraded and now have filtering) I am taking moderation off, so please feel free to supply your own favorite Christmas movie or Christmas special line ever.
But you will have to go a ways to beat 'substituting for spurious Santa Clauses." Just saying.
December 23, 2005
All Right, Look...
1. Anyone who says 'if you don't defend every instance of copyright violation, you lose your copyright' is not allowed to participate in any discussion of copyright. Even if you do agree with the 'every copy is theft' crowd. I mean it. Stop talking right now.
2. Just because I do not agree that every time you make a copy you are stealing food from the mouths of artists or, more explicitly, that every copy is a theft, does not mean that a) I have not done any research on the subject of copyright or b) that I am not entitled to an opinion.
3. Individual instances of copying are not theft no matter how much you wish that they were or really, really want to send your readers, watchers and listeners to jail. It is infringement and is handled in civil court. This does not mean you can't be concerned about infringement or that there is no such thing as criminal infringement, but for crap's sake stop calling every teenager who ever downloaded music a pirate.
4. Being condescending is not the same as being right.
That is all.
Random Writing Thoughts
Okay, not really random, but more than one.
--I seem to have reached a new writing plateau where I receive rejection letters in which the editors really like the story, so much that they aren't sure I should change it, but if I did happen to want to change it, they might want to look at it again.
--My single writing goal for the coming year is to finish things. My stash of unfinished stories is pathetic and somewhat horrifying. At this stage, my (non) career can almost totally be attributed to avoidance and not finishing things.
--Also, and this isn't strictly writing related, the next week and a half includes Christmas, my birthday and New Year's and though I have nothing particularly against Christmas it is otherwise not my favorite time of year.
December 16, 2005
I Blew up my television
Not, unfortunately, on purpose.
Yesterday morning, I turned on my television and it went snap! and crackle! and then...nothing.
Now I a) don't know how old this television is because I can't remember when I bought it but it's probably at least ten years old and b) it's been wearing out for at least the last year. In particular, the blues and greens have become more and more alike over time (this is particular noticeable when watching the home improvement shows and the decorator is gushing over the lovely green shade on the walls and it looks to me like the whole room is just blue, blue and more blue--and a really hideous dark blue too, like people should think twice about ever putting on their walls).
It is even better because I decided to buy myself a digital camera for Christmas even though this has been a very expensive year for me (it's just money, eh?). And the night before my television blew up, I ordered one (which I won't get for awhile because they weren't actually in stock so, really, I have committed all my money to a non-existent camera--but I did get free shipping for ordering it when it wasn't in stock and it was ten dollars cheaper than Amazon.com's non-existent camera). And--I'm not making this up--right while I was ordering this camera, I looked up at my television, which was showing some suspiciously blue room, and thought--I probably should really be buying a television instead.
And, damn, if I wasn't right.
On the other hand, I will now get to see how much more writing I do or do not get done when I have no television.
The War on...Making Stuff Up to Create a Pseudo-controversy
From CNN with Kyra Philips, Sam Seder from the Majority Report and some guy (Bob Knight) who does not have a speaking part in this portion of the transcript:
SEDER: Listen, as far as the war on Christmas goes, I feel like we should be waging a war on Christmas. I mean, I believe that Christmas, it's almost proven that Christmas has nuclear weapons, can be an imminent threat to this country, that they have operative ties with terrorists and I believe that we should sacrifice thousands of American lives in pursuit of this war on Christmas. And hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money.
PHILLIPS: Is it a war on Christmas, a war Christians, a war on over-political correctness or just a lot of people with way too much time on their hands?
SEDER: I would say probably, if I was to be serious about it, too much time on their hands, but I'd like to get back to the operational ties between Santa Claus and al Qaeda.
PHILLIPS: I don't think that exists. Bob? Help me out here.
SEDER: We have intelligence, we have intelligence.
PHILLIPS: You have intel. Where exactly does your intel come from?
SEDER: Well, we have tortured an elf...
December 09, 2005
Writing cuts stress
Like you didn't know this already:
"Research suggests that when people write about emotional upheavals in their lives, improvements in physical and psychological health can result," said James W. Pennebaker, chair of the department of Psychology.
By enabling clearer thinking, expressive writing helps individuals get past trauma. It also helps them improve their social relationships as they get better at talking, laughing and being more at ease with others, Pennebaker said.
Although I'd like to hear a lot less from people who say writing is the hardest job they've ever done. You're not working in cubicle hell sixty hours a week, you're not milking cows at 4:30 in the morning when it's ten below zero, you're not fixing power lines in the middle of a snowstorm, you're not getting shot at...hmmm, maybe the hardest job you've ever done, but not that hard.
Fifteen Shades of Khaki
From Nature, an article about color blindness:
The most common form of colour blindness makes it difficult for those with the condition to distinguish between red and green. But scientists have found that it also helps these people to discern subtle shades of khaki that look identical to those with normal vision
December 08, 2005
Quote of the Day
Daniel Boone having sex with a bear is stupid and boring. Daniel Boone having sex with a bear when his wife might discover him is stupid, but interesting.
...from Will Shetterly (which you might want to read despite the fact that you've already seen this great quote because he has some good stuff about why some action scenes lack tension even when it seems all the right elements are there)
December 07, 2005
Quote of the Day
Via Google:
The quickest way to a man's heart really is through his stomach, because then you don't have to chop through that pesky rib cage.
- J. Jacques
December 06, 2005
Myths of Winter
When I lived in the East it was a well-known fact of winter that when it was really, really cold it didn't snow. That was, in fact, the one compensation for low, low temps--no snow.
Now that I live in the midwest (and Ohio doesn't count. No, I mean it, Ohio, you are not the midwest, no matter what you think. Ohio needs something else to belong to. And Indiana. I am also fairly suspicious of Illinois), I have learned that it is never too cold to snow.
December 05, 2005
Fifteen Things
...about me and books
This is a meme going around Live Journal and it's a great one so I figure I'll take a stab at it.
1. I learned to read when my brother went to kindergarten, which meant I could already read when I went to kindergarten. I went to kindergarten in the Masonic Temple because the school was too crowded and kids had to sleep in the hallway for nap time because the Masonic Temple was too crowded too. Eventually, they sent me to a psychologist, who I disliked intensely but when he asked me if I was uncomfortable I told him no, I was hungry and it was lunch time and I was missing lunch, which apparently cued him to the fact that not only could I read, but I could tell time too and they skipped me up to first grade.
2. In my family the prevailing wisdom is that you can learn anything from books. My father and my uncle when they were (I have no idea how old, but let's say early twenties) decided that they could learn to butcher a steer with a book from the library. I have no memory of how this story turns out, but since it's one my dad used to tell a lot, I presume they actually managed to do it--though I have no idea what kind of shape the book was when they returned it to the library.
3. My whole family reads (or did when we were younger, I'm not sure whether a couple of my brothers read all that much now). Our idea of a really great Sunday afternoon would be for everyone to be curled up somewhere reading a book (if we were at my grandmother's it also involved watching Elvis Presley movies). You can never go wrong in my family by giving someone a book as a gift (unless it's one they already own).
4. I have no idea what the first book I ever read was, though we once owned a Dick and Jane-ish book which consisted only of the word 'Oh' repeated as appropriate throughout the book.
Page 1: Oh!
Page 2: Oh, oh!
Page 3: Oh! Oh! Oh!
Page 4: Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!
Page 5: Oh.
5. When my sister was about three, she memorized one of the Dr. Suess books (I can't for the life of me remember which one), which she would 'read' to the babysitter when she came. The babysitter had no idea what to make of this.
6. My father read us a story every night. My mother would read to us when my father wasn't there, but we really preferred him although my mother put more emotion into the stories and read the dialogue as if it was actually dialogue. My father just read in a metronomic monotone. It was great.
7. My brother once lived in a small-ish town with a used bookstore. The store had two portable racks of paperback books they put outside the front door after they closed at night in case anyone had a book emergency at two o'clock in the morning.
8. Our local library when I was a kid was very small (I didn't think this at the time, but, really, it was tiny). They had a limit on how many books you could take out as a kid (somewhere between 7 and 10) but if we wanted more, we just gave them to my mother to sign out. My mother, who thought The Wonderful World of Disney was suspiciously violent for children to watch, believed that kids should read any book they thought they were ready for. The only books I remember reading too soon (aside from books that just turned out to be really boring) were Hawaii by James Michener, where I got as far as the bashing in heads scene right at the beginning of the book and A Town Called Alice by Nevile Shute where it was the crucifixtion scene that did me in. I'm pretty sure I was in sixth grade when I read both those books and the school librarian was the one who gave me A Town Called Alice.
9. My grandmother bought books by the bag full, especially romance novels and mysteries. She had this little room off her living room that was floor to ceiling filled with books. My sister and I would bring home a bag of books every time we went there. She had a basket full of books by the front door and would press them on you when you left, along with twenty dollar bills and giant molasses cookies. She also had a book of Shirley Jackson stories, The Magic of Shirley Jackson, that you would see right when you walked into her living room. When she died and my brother asked me what I wanted from the house, I told him that book because it feels like my grandmother to me.
10. When I was in graduate school I lived for a year in a big old house in the country with a bunch of other people. The house belonged to some nameless, faceless professor and was filled with bookshelves filled with books. The bookshelves all had books two deep on every shelf which, for some reason, I found fascinating. At our house, we stacked books and put them in baskets and stored them in paper bags, but we never double-upped books on bookshelves.
11. Books are my addiction. Other people shop for shoes or technology toys. I had a student tell me once that he can never go into Best Buy without buying something. That's how Border's is for me, I told him. I have tons of books I haven't even read but I can't stop buying books. Occasionally I declare a book buying sabbatical but it never lasts as long as I say it will.
12. When I go away, even if it's just overnight, I rarely take fewer than four books with me. I have to have one fiction and one non-fiction (for when I get tired of reading one or the other) and then I have to have a backup book for each--because not every town has emergency book buying contingencies (see number 7). When I go, like, to a cabin for a week or someplace else relaxing, I take a whole bag of books and I start collecting them several months in advance and setting them aside so I don't accidently read them some day and ruin the whole vacation. Right before I leave I have to be careful about what books I start reading and when. It's no good taking a half-finished book on vacation because it's taking up good space a whole unstarted book could be packed in.
13. I love owning books. It's one of the greatest things about being an adult with my own money. I remember where books are by their shape and color and position on the book shelf and can almost always go right to the book even if I haven't looked at it in a long time. I can only remember where books are when they're out on bookshelves or in stacks though. Once I pack them away in boxes, I have no idea where they are and I have to go through every single box to find them.
14. Unlike many people I did not start writing when I was young. I made up stories a lot but it was enough just to store them in my head. I used to always try to sit by the window on the school bus so I could stare out the window and daydream the whole ride. My brothers and sister and I did occasionally write plays which we performed on the front porch for my mother and our neighbor down the road. It didn't actually occur to me to be a writer until graduate school when I learned (and, yes, i know this sounds goofy) that it was actually possible to revise things and make them better. Up until then--and this includes all the way through undergraduate college--I figured that what you put down on paper was what you had, with occasional corrections of spelling and grammar.
15. The best presents I ever receive are books that I didn't know existed or didn't know I wanted or hadn't thought of getting.
December 04, 2005
Another new blog
Eye Level from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
which is really cool.
...Except, can I say one thing...full feeds, people! I mean it.
Stress, depression and addiction, oh my...
A new weblog on The Psychology of Stress, Depression, and Addiction.
...via Mind Hacks
December 03, 2005
Time and Story
I'm working on this story where each of the characters is living the story from a different direction--one is moving through it linearly, one backwards, and one randomly:
He'd asked the guy in charge of 'expedition' planning about her. "If you're building a time machine, Megan Whiterose is the one person you absolutely want on your team," Jack Parrish had said.
"We're not building a time machine," Dylan said with a snap.
Jack rolled his eyes. Dylan didn't particularly care for him, had pulled some strings to get him assigned to the expedition planning task force and off Dylan's project team--he hadn't planned on Jack being put in charge. "Whatever you want to call it, Whiterose is someone you better have on your team. She gets the philosophical parts."
"There are no philosophical parts," Dylan said.
"Oh yeah," Jack told him. "There are."
...In the Aftermath of Rain
Take Control of your butter
December 02, 2005
IM shorthand for Monty Python fans
From ricklibrarian:
ANFSCD -- And now for something completely different
SW -- Silly walk
SES&S -- Spam, eggs, sausage & spam
RARA -- Run away! Run away!
NNNNN -- Ni! Ni! Ni! Ni! Ni!
And the one I am adopting Right Now:
NETSI -- No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! (it's funny because it's true)
...via The Shifted Librarian
Annoyances (well, okay maybe one annoyance, but I'm sure there will be more later)
You know, when there's a piece of technology you don't like, don't say, well, you know there are older people who might want to do [whatever the discussion is about] and they, you know, are old and can't handle technology.
Speak for yourself.
Lots of people who are quite possibly lots older than you have no problem with technology. It's like saying 'what about the children?' It's always about imaginary older people and imaginary children. If you don't like something, just say, I don't like this. Don't use anonymous people about whose lives you have no idea to bolster your argument.
The lurkers in email totally support me on this.
December 01, 2005
Things I Haven't Done
This is just pathetic...
The following are all the stories I have written at least 500 words on but have not yet finished:
- All the Rage this Year: 750
- In Lieu of Flying Monkeys: 820
- In the Aftermath of Rain: 2300
- Later, There Will be Fireworks: 2700
- Mountains Too Close to the Sun: 1400
- Riding the Lead Motorcycle in Satan's Army of Heaven: 570
- Skin & Bone: 600
- Tanny & the Bruiser: 1800
- The Impact of Light: 6800
- The Plight of Random Sinners; 10,000 (some of these words probably need to be removed, but in any case it's still not finished)
- The Whale's Lover: 760
- Twelve: 3000
- Waking Up Dead in Iowa: 3660
This doesn't count another thirteen or so that I've written between 200 and 500 words on, idea snippets, or stuff too old to be counted.
I need a 12-step program.
Dogs--Gotta love 'em
[John Henry when I give him a rawhide bone]: BARKBARKBARKBARKBARK....EVERYONE STAY AWAY FROM ME I AM BIG AND SCARYSCARYSCARY
Me: Go in the other room. No one will bother you.
John Henry [as he comes closer]: BARKBARKBARKBARK...I AM VERY LOUD AND SCARY.
Me: Go away or I will take it away from you.
John Henry: BARKBARKBARKBARK...I don't want to BARK at you but I can't help it because I am standing right next to you telling you to LEAVE ME ALONE.
Me: YOU ARE VERY ANNOYING. GO AWAY.
John Henry: BARKBARKBARKBARKBARK
Me [after about three rounds]: Oh, right, yelling doesn't actually work. [Takes him to the other room and asks him to stay]
John Henry: All right. Now everyone is leaving me alone. [quietly chews his bone]
Bille: You are all very silly.
It's not what you remember, it's what you ignore
A new study says that being able to ignore irrelevant things is more important to getting things done than how large a capacity you have for remembering things:
"Until now, it's been assumed that people with high capacity visual working memory had greater storage but actually, it's about the bouncer – a neural mechanism that controls what information gets into awareness," Vogel said.
The findings turn upside down the popular concept that a person's memory capacity, which is strongly related to intelligence, is solely dependent upon the amount of information you can cram into your head at one time. These results have broad implications and may lead to developing more effective ways to optimize memory as well as improved diagnosis and treatment of cognitive deficits associated with attention deficit disorder and schizophrenia.
The $10,000 Dog Translator
For those secrit dog missions:
Worn on a collar or mounted on a wall, the Dog Bio Security System translates barking into alarms for police or military. Bio-Sense Technologies spent two years capturing the sound waves of woofs and arfs, encoding them to be read by a digital signal processor. All dogs emit the same type of bark when they sense trouble. The device can distinguish this bark from a dog's "Hello." A consumer version costs $100. A high-end version costs tens of thousands of dollars but is still 25% the cost of video surveillance.
You know, among the problems I see with this is that all dogs may 'emit the same type of bark when they sense trouble.' But not all dogs consider the same things trouble. Some dogs consider everything trouble.
...via DefenseTech