Monthly Archives: October 2009

The Eternal Flame’s pixels burn bright and efficiently

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Shortly after World War Two, a statue to honor the memories of the dead was erected in the Ukraine. The gas torch in its palm symbolized eternal memory. Years later, the Soviet Union fell and infrastructures crumbled. Natural gas shortages led to the flame being turned off and for years the statue stood dark and unmaintained. Now, a new use for it has been found.

Cell Tower Statue

The defunct gas flame has been replaced with a pixelized version that consumes less than 400w of power. Inside the display sits a cell phone transmitter. I think this is a perfect example of the ideas behind GreenPunk. Take existing infrastructure and repurpose it. Not only is it functional, it’s also aesthetically pleasing.

The new Eternal Flame

This goes onto my list of places I’d like to visit. The spirit, ingenuity and vision of the people behind this should be celebrated. They’ve found a way to continue the monuments original purpose along with providing a useful and, I suspect, critical service.

See English Russia for more picture and the original article.

NoMoNaNo

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Not gonna do it. Nope. I’ve decided NaNoWriMo is not for me, at least for the foreseeable future.

I think the NaNo people are doing a great thing. Noble, in fact. Every year they relaunch on October 1st and every year I log back in to my account, thinking, this is my year. Write a novel* in 50,000 words! Write, write, write every day. Words, thy name is habit. But you know what? I don’t need NaNo.

So many amateur authors start out wanting to write the Great American Novel. Who can blame them? Walk in to any bookstore and you’ll be hard pressed to find more than a shelf or two in any given section dedicated to short stories. It’s implied that novels are where it’s at, baby. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I’ve come to an acceptance. I am a short story writer who may occasionally write novels, in the future. I am not a novelist who occasionally pens a short story.

I’m okay with this. In fact, I’m overwhelmed with satisfaction. I wrestled with the idea of NaNo this year, trying to decide between the two ideas competing for attention. Somewhere in that clash between dwarf-piloted airships firing lighting and that urban fantasy with magically-tattooed hunters, I realized something: I’m already doing exactly what I want to be doing.

I’m reading slush. I’m critiquing stories on OWW and two small groups online. I’m writing, more or less consistently. I’m editing. I’m submitting. I’m exploring dozens of ideas. I’m learning. We’re even planning, sometime in the next few years, to launch our very own shiny SF/F zine. You know what? I am completely happy with where I am and what I’m doing.

I don’t need to write a novel right now. I’ll tackle that challenge when I’m ready and feel like I have something worthy of the long form. In the meantime, I’ll keep writing short stories. I’ll keep revising and polishing and submitting. One of these days, I’ll get a sale, and then another. I’ll make a pro sale and finally join SFWA. And I’ll keep writing short fiction, until something grabs me so strongly that I can’t let go until I see it through to the end of something longer.

* half of a novel, for genre work

Writing update, October edition

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One good thing about being broke is that paper and ink is cheap and ideas are free.

I’ve managed to do a fair bit of new writing in the past couple of months but I’ve been bad about blogging about it. New stories written, old stories rewritten, a handful of submissions and nearly as many rejections. I even submitted to the Writers of the Future contest after years of talking about doing it. Five stories are in the wild right now. Hopefully I can double that by years end.

I’m toying with the idea of attempting NaNoWriMo again this year. I’ve tried it off and on, most recently two years ago. Life went crazy an ended that effort prematurely. Two ideas are vying for attention — the urban fantasy I started in 2007, following three long-lived brothers with magical tattoos hunting the non-sparkly bad guys that killed their parents, and a more contemporary fantasy but with Dwarves, airships, and a clockwork army. Think steampunk but with lightning instead of steam. Sparkpunk. If I don’t do NaNo, I’ll at least knock out a few more short stories, possibly in these two worlds. They’re both fun to play in.

My TODO list for October resembles the following:

  • Revise my Hodag story, due by October 15th
  • Decide if I’m going to do NaNoWriMo
    • Outline NaNoWriMo story
  • Write a Zombie flash fiction story, due by October 16th
  • Organize my list of upcoming anthologies/themes that I want to submit to
  • Revise and submit “Starry, Starry Night”
  • Revise and submit Augmented Reality story
  • Rewrite “Recycled Dreams”

What are you working on?