Category Archives: Uncategorized

“Bring it on”, said the tortoise to the hare.

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I’ve been doing fairly well with my writing schedule. I’ve managed to write every day this week, and all but two days for the month. My pace is slower than I’d like, averaging just under 300 words/day but the key is consistency, not speed.

I’ve been mostly writing in bursts at the end of the day. I’m going to try splitting up my sessions throughout the day — morning, lunch, after work, and late evening. I seem to really hit my stride late in the day so I don’t know if this will be productive or not. One way to find out.

My Tesla story, “Man out of Time”, is at 3,500 words now and at the halfway point. I expect to wrap this up somewhere around 7,000 words, which will make it one of my longer story to date. I should have the first draft finished this week.

The Footprints anthology, edited by Jay Lake and Eric T. Reynolds is open for submissions until November 15th, 2008. The guidelines for this are a little restrictive, clarifying that the human race is gone and the explorers that find out footprints on the moon are not our descendants. This should make for an interesting mix of stories when it’s finished. I have a pretty solid plan for the story I want to write for this. I’ll be starting on this one shortly.

New artwork for the Byzarium Flash Fiction contest has been posted. The image is, as usual, beautiful. The deadline is November 16th. I’m noodling on a few ideas for this one. My last submission to the contest turned out to be a bigger idea than could fit in 500 words — one worth exploring in a longer draft down the road. I’ll probably put something together for this month’s image and see what sticks.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving

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One distinct advantage to a multinational relationship is duplicate holidays. We couldn’t make the trip back to spend the day with Andrea’s family, but we invited mine over and cooked up a small feast for the three of us.

Neither of us have ever cooked a whole turkey before so we opted for a turkey breast in a bag. It turned out to be the most delicious, most turkey I think I’ve ever had. My attempt at a Thanksgiving dinner last year wasn’t bad but pales in comparison to this. Hot apple cider, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, corn and dinner rolls, capped off with a homemade pumpkin caramel cheesecake. A great meal all around.

We couldn’t have asked for a nicer day. We opened up the windows and aired out the house. The leaves are turning and the temperatures are dropping gradually. It shouldn’t be long before the first deep frost and a bit of relief from the fall allergies.

I haven’t been paying much attention to football this year, but we turned on the Chicago Bears and watched what ended up being an exciting game, especially in the last quarter. I was sure they had the game wrapped up with a one point lead with eleven seconds left on the clock but Atlanta really pulled out all the stops and drove down the field for a field goal with one second on the clock.

A good weekend spent with loved ones.

The sky is falling and still we dance

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Via Futurismic and SpaceWeather.com:

INCOMING ASTEROID: A small, newly-discovered asteroid named 2008 TC3 is approaching Earth and chances are better than 99.8% that it will hit. Steve Chesley of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory estimates that atmospheric entry will occur on Oct 7th at 0246 UTC over northern Sudan to the Red Sea. Measuring only a few meters across, the space rock poses no threat to people or structures on the ground, but it should create a spectacular fireball, releasing about a kiloton of TNT in energy as it disintegrates and explodes in the atmosphere. Asteroids of this size hit Earth every few months, but this is the first time one has been discovered before it hit.

This is pretty spectacular. It doesn’t sound as if those of us in Northern America will be able to catch the show but hopefully someone out there will catch and film the event.

Back in the saddle; this leather is suprisingly comfortable.

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September was a difficult month. Fall allergies raged out of control. Legal wrangling related to the divorce and financial stress made sleep a challenge. T minus 30 days and counting.

I’ve been thinking about writing but not actually getting any done. September broke my 2008 streak of one new first draft per month. Sitting down with enough energy to concentrate and be creative wasn’t happening. I thought about writing. I read. I highly recommend The Savage Humanists, edited by Fiona Kelleghan.


“The Savage Humanists” (Red Deer Press)

I also, finally, read Watchmen. Yes, I admit it. I have never read it before now. I’ll probably have more to say about it another time. I’ll just acknowledge that I understand why so many people were moved by it. The movie is coming out in 2009 (pending the ongoing legal battle with Fox).


“Watchmen” (Alan Moore)

I am fairly disorganized and I have a difficult time being productive when my work environment is cluttered. Quite the oxymoron, I know. I write my first (and sometimes second) drafts longhand. I was doing it all in one notebook and flipping back and forth was getting both tedious and ultimately brain-melting. I picked up a couple new spiral notebooks and last night, for the first time in weeks, I got words out. Just shy of a thousand words on the Tesla alt. history story that’s been kicking around since last year’s workshop.

Things aren’t looking any easier in the foreseeable future. October is going to be a busy month. I’ll be attempting to blog on a more regular basis as well as catch up on my writing goals for the year. Final preparation for D-Day, which involves refinancing the house, is ongoing. Then, literally as soon as I’m done at court it’s off to New York City for a tradeshow. NaNoWriMo is also in November. I won’t be officially participating; instead I’ll be attempting to write 50,000 words worth of short story.

What does your name mean?

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Snagged from eeknight:


What Adam Means


You are usually the best at everything … you strive for perfection.

You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive.

You have the classic “Type A” personality.

You are balanced, orderly, and organized. You like your ducks in a row.

You are powerful and competent, especially in the workplace.

People can see you as stubborn and headstrong. You definitely have a dominant personality.

You are confident, self assured, and capable. You are not easily intimidated.

You master any and all skills easily. You don’t have to work hard for what you want.

You make your life out to be exactly how you want it. And you’ll knock down anyone who gets in your way!
I don’t know about that hard work part. Some days it feels like all I do is work. I’m definitely not organized, although I wish I were!

Allergies

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Yesterday I had the first of four weekly tests to determine what I’m allergic to. This consists of getting five pieces of jagged plastic twisted into the sensitive pasty flesh of my forearm and waiting for the wounds to erupt.

I had mild reactions to cat and dog (bad for me, but manageable). I also reacted to household dust and molds. The worst, though, was histamine. My body is producing enough of the stuff to create a welt the size of a small volcano.

Continue reading →

Contests and Anthologies

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The Weird Tales Spam contest is now closed to submissions. They received 150 submissions, and the winners will be announced on Saturday at WorldCon. The winners of the Return to Luna contest will also be announced on Saturday at 4PM, also at WorldCon. We aren’t able to make the trip to Denver this year but I’ll be keeping an eye out for both announcements. I have a horse in both races.

This was a busy weekend for announcements. Two new contests and two new anthologies are on the horizon, all of which have peaked my interest. Details are below.

Shroud Magazine is holding a Halloween haiku horror contest. Better hurry, though. The deadline is August 8th.

Byzarium announced their latest Flash Fiction contest. The prompt for the contest is “Rebuilding” by Kiriko Moth. It’s a fabulous piece of art and should provide for some interesting stories.

John Joseph Adams, assistant editor of F&SF and editor of several of the anthologies on my bookshelf, has announced his latest project: Federations.

From Star Trek to Star Wars, from Dune to Foundation, science fiction has a rich history of exploring the idea of vast intergalactic societies, and the challenges facing those living in or trying to manage such societies. The stories in Federations will continue that tradition.

I’m fairly excited about this anthology. I have a few ideas bouncing around my head that may fit the theme. The reading period opens on November 1st and ends January 1st, 2009.

Hadley Rille Books has announced Footprints, an anthology to be edited by Jay Lake and Eric T. Reynolds.

Long after our species and all its works have turned to dust, the moon landing sites will still show evidence of our time here on Earth. Imagine future explorers from among the stars interpreting that. The astronauts’ footprints should last longer than the fossils in the Olduvai Gorge have.