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| 2009-11-22 05:31 |
| [links] Link salad hears a high lonesome sound |
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| art, books, calendula, cool, links, personal, politics, process, religion, reviews, science, stories, videos, writing |
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A bit more on Interzone 225 — With novelette "Bone Island" by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) calendula_witch and me.
Get Fuzzy on the perils of authorship (again)
The Extraordinary World of Ex Libris Art — (Via Dark Roasted Blend.)
Best Use of Exploitative Tactis — Drawn! with a very strange, short animation. Cool, and vaguely NSFW.
Cassini buzzes Enceladus once again — Mmm, photographic goodness.
Why do we hate? Academics seek answer in new field — (Via Freakonomics Blog.)
JFK nephew barred from communion: report — Mmm, I loves me some separation of Church and State. And what is it about religious people that makes them want to force the rest of society to abide by their particular beliefs?
?otD: Do you feel like you're king of the hill?
11/22/2009 Body movement: 120 minute suburban walk (about to depart) Hours slept: 6.25 This morning's weigh-in: n/a (not yet) Currently reading: Finch by Jeff VanderMeer
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The Good. The Bad. The Ugly. — Kameron Hurley riffs on a recent comment of mine about copy writing vs fiction writing.
Two Lumps does steampunk
The Emerging Field of Biophotonic Communication — The growing evidence that cells communicate with photons is generating an exciting new field of research. Wow is that is that strange.
"RuBisCo Stars" and the Riddle of Life — Plus a really cool iPhone app. Centauri Dreams gets jiggy with the interstellar communication.
52% of Republicans think Obama was not legitimately elected — WTF? And don't try to tell me this compares to Bush v. Gore - the issues there were sufficiently legitimate to wind up before the Supreme Court, which made a self-admittedly flaky decision (viz their instructions that the ruling was not to be used as precendent). This is trial by FOX News and conservative paranoia. Not to mention which the numbers don't even begin to hold up on the face of it.
Gingrich warns GOP of dangers of extremism — Much like Howdy Doody warning of the evils of puppetry, methinks. Or possibly Joe McCarthy being alarmed about the impact of Red baiting, to use a more Republican-focused analogy. Newt bears as much responsibility as Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes for creating the psychotic mess that is the modern GOP. Now he's sorry?
?otD: Who are the three men you admire most?
11/21/2009 Body movement: 60 minute suburban walk Hours slept: 7.0 This morning's weigh-in: 234.8 Currently reading: Finch by Jeff VanderMeer
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Nice walk up Twin Peaks this morning. I'll miss it, as I don't know when I'll be back in SF in the foreseeable future. I'm likely under a travel restriction through about July, though I may be able to sneak down to California briefly over the holidays.
I'm returning to Portland this afternoon, calendula_witch will be there on Sunday, driving the Witchmobile as she'll stay for a couple of weeks. shelly_rae is heading to Portland today as well, to be my cancer buddy, and calendula_witch's, through the surgery and the hospitalization following.
Lots of busy coming up, including the Niece's sixth birthday party on Friday and an early family Thanksgiving on Sunday. This is good, as the surgery is a week from today, and by about Monday I will be an utter wreck.
Had a stray thought while walking about the difference between my business writing (Day Jobbery) and my fiction. Yesterday I executed a quick project, only a few hours, in which I repurposed some existing text from our Web site and from a handful of sales proposals. This is completely normal behavior, because it preserves brand consistency, keeps me on message, and helps the salespeople by offering predictable language they're already familiar with. I'm not required to be original every time, in fact, quite the opposite. The creativity there comes from figuring out how to meet the requirement in the first place, writing introductory, bridging and concluding text, and generally positioning the whole project. Whereas in my fiction writing, I never deliberately repeat myself. (Well, almost never, but it's very unusual.) I go to a fair amount of trouble to not repeat other people, though we all do it by accident sometimes.
This may be about as revelatory as noticing the sky is blue, but I'd never thought of things this way before. Ah, brain, I knew there was a reason I take you for walks.
Also, I've continued to write through all this. Currently revising calendula_witch's draft of Our Lady of the Islands, a book that continues to be an excellent read.
All in all, my head and heart remain unusually calm these last few days. Let us hope for more of the same.
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| 2009-11-18 05:36 |
| [links] Link salad has its hair pulled back, Wayfarers on |
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| books, cool, funny, green, health, language, links, personal, photos, process, reviews, weird, writing |
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A fascinating roundup of some (starkly contradictory) reviews of my novel Green [ Powell's | Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | Borders ]
Fantasy and Fitness: Interviews with Jay Lake and Elizabeth Bear
Get Fuzzy on what writing really is — Plus bonus parts of speech!
Faults "intollerable and euer vndecent" — Language Log is rather funny about 16th century prescriptivism. With primary sources, no less. A must-read for word geeks and grammar geeks.
Hippos biting a crocodile to death — Wow. And yes, this is a violent photo. Nature red of tooth and claw.
PETMAN prototype — A walking robot that approaches the uncanny valley from a different direction. (Thanks to wilyumtx.)
?otD: Where did you leave your heart?
11/18/2009 Body movement: 60 minute urban walk (San Francisco hills!) Hours slept: 6.0 This morning's weigh-in: 233.0 Currently reading: Finch by Jeff VanderMeer
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As my cancer surgery approaches, and the indeterminate recovery period, followed by the runup to chemo, I am closing out my commitments. Some have been met, some I am shedding. I'll deliver "The Specific Gravity of Grief" to the requesting editor before surgery next week, and I'll meet my contract commitments on Endurance next spring. Other than that, everything's being cut until I know what my resources are, in terms of time, energy and my ability to write under adverse medical circumstances.
That being said, if I've promised you a story, or I owe you a blurb, a book in the mail or something else, and you have not heard from me already, now would be an excellent time to remind me. (Among other things, stress is rather savagely robbing both my memory and my focus on follow-through.) After early next week, my ability to even pay attention, let alone deliver, will be compromised for a while.
So please, hit me in comments or via email if it looks like I'm not going to do something you're counting on. We'll negotiate from there.
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My largely complete 2009 bibliography, for all your gift giving, award nominating or reading completist needs [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]
The Curious Threshold For Creativity — A new model of society suggests that we should spend no more than 50 percent of our time being creative. Hmm...
God, the Army, and PTSD — Is religion an obstacle to treatment? Tell me again why faith-based programs are such a good idea?
[Rhode Island Governor] Carcieri vetoes bill allowing partners to plan funerals — That's what I like to see, family values hitting teh gay where it hurts them the most. Hey, conservatives, are you especially proud of this one? This is exactly what you vote for, every time.
Save yourself! — Jihadism as a response to American anti-terror campaigns, and the value of protest. Whatever your politics, this is worth reading.
?otD: What is the name of Orion's dog, anyway?
11/16/2009 Body movement: 60 minute urban walk (San Francisco hills!) Hours slept: 6.25 This morning's weigh-in: 233.5 Currently reading: Finch by Jeff VanderMeer
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Yesterday was a good day. calendula_witch and I got in a terrific walk up some mondo hills, spent some good quality couple time together, both got writing and reading done, then eventually went out. Our itinerary included Good Vibrations, Borderlands Books, Tacqueria Cancun (one of my favorite Mexican restaurants on the West Coast), and of course, The Make-Out Room for Writers With Drinks. Borderlands Books produced some unexpected bonus in running into Greg and Astrid Bear. I also got a phone call on the store phone, from sdn, which was surprising but fun.
We ran into Kat Richardson on the sidewalk, who was killing time before reading at Writers With Drinks, so we pulled her along. Once there we met up with maryrobinette (another reader) and Mr. maryrobinette, along with two friends of calendula_witch's. Afterwards, out with the WWD crew for crepes and fries at Frjtz. Whoever thought of putting truffle oil on french fries ought to be sanctified.
After WWD, we wound up talking to blakecharlton and therinth quite a bit. Blake's a medical student with both a personal and professional interest in cancer, Erin is a nurse. They had a lot to say, especially Blake, which was very helpful to me in my ongoing process of sorting my perspectives on my cancer, its recurrence, and my fears both rational and irrational. One thing Blake talked about was the survivorship community. The point he made, in reference to a close family member who'd survived a very bad experience with cancer (much worse than mine looks to be, frankly), was that there were conversations that Blake could not have with his loved one. There's a shared experience and an emotional vernacular which cancer survivors only find in other cancer survivors.
This of course made all kinds of sense. You see the same phenomenon in veterans, law enforcement, survivors of a disaster, or people who've shared any complex, high stress experience.
Which made me realize that one reason I'd written "The Specific Gravity of Grief" was to try to frame that cancer experience, that cancer mindset, for people who haven't taken that particular journey. To some degree, it's why I blog so extensively and thoroughly about my cancer journey, but the story (just finished, now in revision, due out from Fairwood Press next year) is a way of communicating the essentially incommunicable. Or so I hope.
A lot of streams crossed last night, and it wasn't dangerous so much as enlightening. It reminded me that while I stumble a lot, I also continue to progress. Sometimes I remember to be proud of myself, and the people around me.
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My flight left Portland this morning in the pre-dawn darkness, and landed in Philadelphia this evening in dusk's last failing light. I spent almost eight hours sitting on airplanes, with a 40 minute break in the middle in DFW. Talk about your lost days... On the other hand, I did Day Jobbery work, got 3,900 words in on "The Specific Gravity of Grief", answered a couple of interviews, and took two naps, as well as reading a good chunk more of The Jade Man's Skin.
I did wear the stupid fricking mask. Boy did that get old after a while. I also pretended to OCD and used hand sanitizer frequently. We'll see if any of this helps stave off respiratory infection. Much like the city's alligator watch, we'll never know unless it fails. My state of mind in this regard is left as an exercise for the reader.
Dinner tonight with klingonguy, valverdi and their friend D—, who likely has an LJ handle but I'm not smart enough to figure it out. Quite nice an evening.
The Philadelphia Airport Marriott, on the other hand, is yet another Marriott property without wireless. I don't get it. For what these rooms cost, they shouldn't have any problem doing what every Motel 6 and mom-and-pop coffee house in the country can do. I'm done staying at Marriott properties, given how many other hotel chains seem to manage this minor issue just fine. I can't believe they don't get constant pushback from their business travel customers over this.
Tomorrow is a roadtrip from Philadelphia to the Pennsylvania hinterlands for Day Jobbe meetings. At least I'll see the sun tomorrow. And then off to San Francisco Friday, and my sweet calendula_witch.
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| 2009-11-09 05:41 |
| [links] Link salad looks toward Philadelphia, blinks into the rising sun |
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| cool, culture, funny, links, personal, photos, politics, process, science, sex, tech, writing |
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Foob on writers — And our "temper mental" selves.
Lucy Knisley on memories of childhood sexuality — Oi. Quite something.
Another fabulous WPA poster on Vintagraph
Dieselpunk Bomber — Mmm.
Martian Landscapes — Boston.com's "The Big Picture" with a roundup of some of the recent, stunning Mars photography. (Via Bad Astronomy.)
A Tiny Revolution on Reagan and the Pakistani bomb — Yep, those Republicans, always looking out for national security. And principled, too! Nothing to see here, citizen, move along.
Unclear on the concept of separation of church and state — Several Democrats, including Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pennsylvania, said they are in touch with their Catholic bishops back home. Altmire said he must have the approval of his bishop in Pittsburgh before he can vote yes. Nice to know that there are some Democrats who hold Constitutional principles in as high regard as their GOP colleagues.
Paranoia Strikes Deep — Paul Krugman on the American Right. He says something I've been saying for years, albeit far more elegantly, in the money shot: ...the G.O.P. has been taken over by the people it used to exploit.
?otD: How many writers does it take to change a light bulb?
11/9/2009 Body movement: 15 minutes of stretching and meditation, 30 minutes on stationary bike Hours slept: 5.25 This morning's weigh-in: 233.0 Currently reading: The Jade Man's Skin by Daniel Fox
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| 2009-11-07 07:37 |
| [links] Link salad wanders into the weekend, idly scratching |
| Public |
| books, cool, escapement, language, links, personal, process, reviews, science, tech, trains, writing |
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A reader reacts to Escapement [ Powell's | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Borders ]
RULES OF SEDUCTION: writing the opposite sex — Justine Musk on character.
English, Jack — A blog for you really high end grammar geeks.
Articulated Railroad Car: 1935 — Another quite cool patent drawing.
The Fairey Rotodyne — This looks to me like some crazed Soviet project. Would you fly in it?
APOD with an image of Stickney Crater on Phobos
The Gravitational Lens and Communications — Some serious Big Idea science from Centauri Dreams.
?otD: What age is this the dawning of, anyway?
11/7/2009 Body movement: 2 hour, 15 minute suburban walk Hours slept: 5.5 This morning's weigh-in: 231.2 Currently reading: The Jade Man's Skin by Daniel Fox
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Dazed Rambling on world building — He is not so fond of my cities, or bram111's.
Language Log lays some smack on Dan Brown
Ads from a 1952 edition of Laff — I'm quite taken with the love letter ad, myself.
Time Travel Through the Brain — The lede is tongue-in-cheek, though quite cool. The story is about the history of how we visualize the brain, also cool.
?otD: How fantastic was your voyage?
10/26/2009 Body movement: 60 minute suburban walk (with stretching) Hours slept: 6.0 This morning's weigh-in: 233.0 Currently reading: Dragon in Chains by Daniel Fox
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Thrush — Art writing guru James Gurney with a lovely little piece of visual and print poetry.
42 Essential 3rd Act Twists — Hilarious.
A feisty embuggerance — Humorous academic neepery with respect to Google Scholar.
Green Genes — Inheritable transgenics. Wow.
HD 209458b: Comparing Exoplanet Atmospheres — More wow from Centauri Dreams.
No Vaccine? A Different Risk — Yep. Antivax borders on criminal behavior, and it's stupid besides, because the risk being transferred away to other people's kids is being replaced by a far more significant risk to the antivaxer's own kids.
America — A WWII vet and lifelong Republican talks about gay marriage and equality in a very sensible way. (Via Making Light.)
?otD: What would you tell the_child today?
10/22/2009 Body movement: n/a (prepping for PET/CT scan) Hours slept: 6.0 This morning's weigh-in: 231.2 Currently reading: Dragon in Chains by Daniel Fox
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csinman puts me in a cage — This in reference to a Tweet of mine about a recent dream that mikigarrison and keffy were confining me permanently to a medical lab.
nancyfulda is wise about the difference between print literature and cinema
The Language of Food — Irregular, deeply detailed bits of food history. (Found at Language Log.)
A vegeterian spider — Interesting stuff.
Adrift on Ligeia Mare — Centauri Dreams on exploring Titan. Both the title and the content of this blog ought to be strong story drivers.
Is executing an innocent man enough? — Ta-Nehisi Coates on conservatives and the death penalty.
BlogTalk: What Is Up With This Hitler Talk? — The New York Times on the American Right's fascination with Hitler analogies. Psst, guys, old Adolf had a lot more in common with your worldview than with anything liberal-progressives have ever dreamed up. In this country it's conservatives who yearn to criminalize private behavior, marginalize and punish social and ethnic groups, burn books, torture suspected enemies, invade other countries, and similar trifles. Hitler in your mirror may be closer than he appears.
?otD: Do you know where you're going to?
10/15/2009 Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride Hours slept: 6.0 This morning's weigh-in: 232.4 Currently reading: Dragon in Chains by Daniel Fox
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After a truly lovely weekend here in San Francisco with calendula_witch, I am off to Los Angeles this morning. Will be in Torrance, CA through Wednesday morning, then back home to Portland. Have some things to report, about a car show we dropped in on, as well as more cancer Fear stuff, but that blogging shall have to wait until this evening.
In the mean time, consider this an open question thread. Whether you're a brand-new reader or a long-time friend, ask me here in comments about writing, life, cancer, whatever.
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Just finished the first draft of a Sunspin story entitled "Permanent Fatal Errors", at 5,600 words. This one was a little harder than usual for me, though I wouldn't describe myself as blocked, exactly. Started it last week, got hung up on the 500-word stub I'd begun with, so I went and did other writerly things, then life got in the way for a couple of days. But now it's done, with about 2,100 new words today to wrap the draft.
A fun thing happened in "Permanent Fatal Errors", one of those nuggets of craft candy which makes writers so very happy. Early on, I'd put in a nearly throwaway bit of characterization regarding my protagonist. About 2/3 of the way through the story, the throwaway bit came back as important in a plot point. Then it turned out to be critical to the ending.
That sense of, "Oh, hey, I knew what I was doing all along, how about that?" is real spiffy writer cookie. I don't get it in every story, but when I do, it's fun. Kind of a buzz. And it renews my generally strong faith in Fred, my subconscious writing mind that makes most of the decisions and does almost all of the heavy lifting.
Since we're talking about a new draft, ( some WIP... )
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Nice dinner last night with calendula_witch and the_ogre. I made sandwiches by laying down crispy pepper bacon and prosciutto on sliced mini baguettes, then covering the prosciutto with asiago cheese and the bacon with Breemster XO and toasting them. Reassembled with arugula and thin-sliced tomatoes, and served with pickled beets. Mmm. Lots of good conversation and friend time after, but, mmm.
Also managed to get a little over 1,000 words done on the Fermi paradox story last night. The previous two days had been so difficult I'd gotten behind. Planned to be done with this by now, but I'll finish up the draft this weekend. After that I dive into a close critique of calendula_witch's novel Demonhead, and a revision draft of our joint project, Our Lady of the Islands.
We're out and about today, preshopping for the WFC cheese party, doing household/couple things, then eventually hitting Borderlands Books and Writers With Drinks this evening in the Mission District. See some, all or none of you there!
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Yesterday afternoon, I sent a story to market. Yesterday evening, it was accepted. (No formal announcement yet, because I don't have the all-clear from the editor, but I will soon.) I tweeted both events more or less in realtime, which sparked some questions.
Likewise, I mentioned recently on my blog that my acceptance rate was a function of the terrain of my career. That also sparked some questions.
So here's a little analysis from the point of view of an author who's transitioning from early career to mid-career. Since the beginning of 2008, I have sold 25 pieces of short fiction solo, and eight collaboratively, six with calendula_witch and two with kenscholes. In that same time, I have received 30 solo rejections, and four collaborative rejections.
A preliminary look at the data suggests my self-cited 1:3 ratio of acceptances to rejections was in fact pessimistic. Looking only at my solo work, my ratio is slightly worse than 1:1. 1:3, I now realize, is my lifetime ratio. Also, these days, with rare exceptions, almost everything I write sells by the second submittal.
However, these statistics are significantly colored by the fact that I largely write short fiction to invitation. I believe I only wrote two spec pieces in 2007 and 2008 combined. I've written more spec pieces this year, about four, but almost entirely as a function of doing exploratory backstory or character development for my several novel continuities — Green, Mainspring and Flowers have all seen spec shorts written. (The collaborative work tends more to being spec, because the impulse that drives it somewhat different.)
So even my 1:1.2 ratio of acceptances to rejections reflects the fact that relatively few of my stories enter open slush. I still get rejected from invited markets about 1 out of every 3 or 4 times, for the very same reasons open slush gets rejected. Suitability, level of craft, editorial/reader appeal, too close to other work already acquired, wrong length, phase of the moon, etc. On the flip side, sometimes I'll send an editor two, three or four stories on an invite, and suggest they pick the one they like. (I don't recommend doing that unless you know the editor's process rather well, or have queried that this is acceptable.) By definition, I'm creating rejections when I follow that pattern.
All of this is very different from five or six years ago, when the vast majority of my submittals were throwing it over the wall into open slush, and hoping to make a hit. The meaning of my rejections has changed considerably, along with the pattern and significance of my submittals. Of course, it has never hurt that my particular psychology is such that rejections don't stress me much in any case. They're just another form of editorial response, I note and file them, then do something else.
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| 2009-10-06 05:42 |
| [links] Link salad watches the leaves spin from October |
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| cool, fiction, links, personal, politics, process, reviews, science, stories, tech, writing |
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My novella "Chain of Stars" has gone live at Subterranean — Part 1 of 4.
The Agony Column reviews The Book of Dreams from Subterranean Press — In which I am favorably mentioned, along with diuers other better-known writers.
lonfiction with some good thoughts on writing, process, muse and motivation
How Neutrinos Could Revolutionize Communications with Submarines — Strange doings. Lieutenant Commander La Forge to the bridge, please.
A Nobel prize for a Bush critic — (Thanks to danjite.)
The Politics of Spite — Paul Krugman on conservative reaction to Chicago losing the Olympic bid. ...at this point, the guiding principle of one of our nation’s two great political parties is spite pure and simple. If Republicans think something might be good for the president, they’re against it — whether or not it’s good for America.
?otD: Who shrove Tuesday?
10/6/2009 Body movement: 90 minutes of suburbam walking Hours slept: 6.0 This morning's weigh-in: 227.8 Currently reading: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard P. Feynman
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davidlevine is a genius. Some time back, he executed an analysis of the Mainspring world that caused me to amend the worldbuilding in Escapement to keep the clockwork universe as rational as possible (in context).
So now, a few weeks ago, at the writing retreat he had organizes, David read a draft of my short story, "Torquing Vacuum", a short in the Sunspin continuity. He gave me some crit, though mostly he agreed with beth_bernobich, whose crit I'd had clipped to the manuscript at the time.
We then drifted into a lengthy, intermittent discussion of the worldbuilding behind Sunspin. This focused on both some micro stuff (ship nomenclature) and some macro stuff (implications of my star drive technology for planetary economies, and the underlying timeline).
Damn me if he wasn't right about everything. Rethinking continues apace, but in the meantime I've noodled "Torquing Vacuum" sufficiently that it fits within the continuity revisions I'll need to make to answer David's points.
David, you make me a better writer every time we talk, I swear. I'm glad you're my friend.
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calendula_witch and I don't usually talk about our relationship here in the blogosphere, as such. Mostly such things are of interest primarily to the principals. However, she's just sold a story, "The Hippie Monster of Eel River", to the Apex Book Company's Close Encounters of the Urban Kind anthology, edited by jennifer_brozek.
Thing is, I got rejected from that anthology. Now, I don't generally blog about rejections, other than to occasionally note their accumulation. And I still get rejected roughly three times for every sale I make. (Though that statistic decomposes in a more complex fashion than is intuitively obvious — the current terrain of my writing career is a topic for another time.)
But here is an intersection. We are two writers in a passionate relationship, working together ("Rolling Steel", Our Lady of the Islands, etc.) as well as separately. And my career is far longer established than hers, by simple dint of publication history.
So for calendula_witch to skunk me at a market is a milestone, one which I think deserves to be celebrated. It's a reminder to both of us of something we already believe down to our bones — that we are equals, partners, working on a par. It's exciting for me to see her succeed outside of the context of our joint work, and it's important for her. Best of all, it's a solid external validation of a truth we've long held between us.
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