My Jim Gunn workshop classmate Kij Johnson has a new story, “Spar“, up at Clarkesworld. The story is explicit, both in language and content, and very worth reading. I’m not in the reviewing business, so I’ll just point you here and here for two that nail it.
Andrea is a baker (as well as a writer), and I like to eat. We’ve been talking about making gingerbread for Christmas. We made our first experimental batch last night. We made a dozen gingerbread men in various costumes. The best were the gingerbone (skeletons) and the ninjabread man. Next time we’re going to try making a ninja outfit out of fondant. I neglected to take pictures before they were consumed, but I promise to take some the next time.
We’ve taken to spending some quiet, romantic friday nights, watching tv and having some wine. We were sitting on the couch, waiting for the gingerbread to cooled when the power went out. It’s not unusual to loose power, even in clear weather. I flipped on the scanner and heard: “did anyone see the bright light to the west?”, “…transformer…”, “…looked like a spotlight…”. It didn’t take long for the power grid to switch to a new transformer, but somewhere in the process our internet died. Another router fried.
We made a trip to Frys to pick up a new one, but they didn’t have the one I wanted. We stopped for a bite of lunch at Hooters (when did they get boneless wings?). There’s a Tiger Direct store nearby, so we headed in that direction with the intent to stop by and check out a comic book store on the way. We wanted to pick up the second volumes of The Walking Dead and 100 Bullets, and I’m on the look out for Transmetropolitan.
Right next door to the comic book store was a pet store that I’ve bought from before. That was probably a bad thing. We forgot to go look for comics and the pet store not only had a mix of two of my favorite breeds, but she was on sale.
Behold the Puppy!
She’s a Neapolitan Mastiff/English Bulldog mix and should be between 75-100lb when full grown. It’s a good thing we have plenty of room now, and are planning to move to a place with a fenced in yard in the country next year sometime. Between our new puppy, the boxer and the blue heeler/border collie, we’re full up on dogs.
We haven’t decided on a name for her yet, but we’re leaning towards Ripley.
A smattering of links I’ve been meaning to share.
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).
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.
Former writers group buddy (before he escaped to the land of 10,000 lakes) and all around nice guy, David Schwartz, released his first book earlier in the month.
“Superpowers: A Novel” (David J. Schwartz)
I remember when I first heard him describe the book in group one night. Five college friends wake up one morning to discover they each have a superpower. Superheroes in a world without a supervillain. The story follows them through the discovery of and adjustment to their newfound abilities and explores the consequences of their actions.
I didn’t have access to comic books growing up but in the last year I’ve really started getting caught up on graphic novels. I’m far from a comic book expert but I don’t see this isn’t just a rehashing of every other superhero story. There are some surprising twists and turns throughout the story, particularly at the end.
I haven’t been the most voracious of novel readers lately but I found myself looking forward to the end of the day so I could sit down and read more of it. I finished it up late last night and the ending left me both sad and satisfied. It was a fun, entertaining read, well-worth the price of admission.
Tired, but happy.
Stopped off at a Barnes and Noble before seeing Iron Man tonight. Not only did we find copies of Weird Tales and Apex Digest (both difficult to find in stores, in my experience) but we saw the Steampunk anthology edited by Jeff & Ann Vandermeer, which was released today, in the wild.
No writing done today, but I’m down to the last scene rewrite for my Sword and Sorceress submission. I expect that to be ready by the end of the weekend.
