Halloween Surprise
Handsome and handsomer.
—and POOF! The picutre was gone.
Such is the nature of the internets: down the rabbit hole it goes, only to live in a cache.
Embrace the Suck
Ken calls it “Embrace the Draft“, I am less nice about it. I call it “Embrace the Suck“, and the concept is to push past your natural tendency to over-criticize your efforts and stop writing. Instead of stopping, push onward. Finish the novel. Starting over is not going to make you a better writer. Doing what you said—when you said you would do it by—will.
A finished pile of crap is a monumental milestone. In a direct crap-to-crap comparison, the completed crap is better than your only a single chapter crap.
I’m overexaggerating, of course. Your work is not crap. Even if it is, the learning process of finishing a manuscript cannot be denied. Now you can go back and polish that sucker! Whatever you do, don’t. Stop. Writing.
Piano
Thing One’s Fall piano recital is coming up. Last year, he wasn’t feeling well. He went to the recital, nailed it, and then promptly was sick for a week.
Such a determined boy!
Anytime I have problems writing, I think of that piano recital. Then I buck up, tell my inner mouse to shove it, and write.
Inspiration, sometimes, sneaks up on you quietly. Music is like that. I know a part of Thing One was simply going to do the recital because he did not want to let his piano teacher down. Another part of me knows that his creativity and his fondness for music will not to be denied.
I live with a family of artists. Can I keep up?
Just Twelve Minutes
Thing Two was antsy. He loves Halloween and could not fall asleep last night. I simply went into his room to lay down with him in his bed. We talked about nothing much in particular, and when he closed his eyes, I would tickle him a couple of times.
Then he was asleep.
It took him twelve minutes to fall asleep. If I think of those twelve precious minutes, were there others in the day more special to me?
No.
Twelve minutes turns into twelve days, which turns into twelve weeks, which becomes twelve months and then twelve years. One day, I will be looking in his room at the very spot he used to sleep in, and he will be away, living his own life worth living.
I will look upon that empty room and cry.
For twelve minutes.
*snort*
When I was 21, I was quite the crazy man. I have a doc I called “Poems Written While Drunk and or Can’t Sleep”. I had forgotten about this doc for years and years. This evening I found it and lo, the very first poem:
Lover lost
Everything gone
Failed I have
I can’t go on
Cursed 7 times
Dead 7 times
Bled 7 times
Thirsted 7 times
Phone is ringing
8 is calling!
Yes, they are all that bad. Some are worse. MY EYES!
Rifle Digression: the wonderful urban-centric AR-10T
The Armalite AR-10T
I own an Armalite AR-10T, identical (down to the scope!) of the one pictured here.
For you rifle inclined readers (there are three who read this blog), a brief rundown: My 24″ barreled Armalite AR-10T is chambered in 7.62 NATO and I have been shooting molly-coated Black Hills match. Alas, the range I belong to only goes out to 200 yards so I have not really taken it out for a spin (I need to join the Cascade Rifle Club for that).
For a semi-automatic rifle, I cannot stress how accurate this sucker is. The tolerances are tight and the craftsmanship is superb. Even with my meager marksmanship, I can hit 1 MOA groups from the bench. All. Day. Long. Others with the same rifle can do 1/2 MOA. It is that good.
The nice thing is the recoil. Stoner’s design mitigates a lot of it, and I cannot really feel any difference between it and say an AR-15 with a 20″ barrel. I am sure the weight helps (it is not light by any means), but as an accurate rifle platform designed for rapid follow-up shots, it is a winner.
My singular beef is the rifle did not come with a standard rail on the bottom. It would be nice to have the option of having all my rifles (present and future) use the same accessory platforms for various bipods. That is a minor nit. It is easy enough to put on your own rail.
I have a rule in my house that if the kids want to look at my firearms, all they need to do is ask. Thing Two, who is six, is very enamored of this rifle, and last night he wanted to examine it. There is something about the optic setup that tickles him. Perhaps it is the Mr. Yuck stickers on the flip-up lens covers.
One would think he would be enamored of my M4, as that is what they seem me clean all the time. I believe, however, Thing Two is a rifle snob. He knows a good rifle when he sees it.
Blue Oyster Cult – (Don’t Fear) The Reaper
All our times have come
Here but now they’re gone
Seasons don’t fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain..we can be like they are
Come on baby…don’t fear the reaper
Baby take my hand…don’t fear the reaper
We’ll be able to fly…don’t fear the reaper
Baby I’m your man…
Valentine is done
Here but now they’re gone
Romeo and Juliet
Are together in eternity…Romeo and Juliet
40,000 men and women everyday…Like Romeo and Juliet
40,000 men and women everyday…Redefine happiness
Another 40,000 coming everyday…We can be like they are
Come on baby…don’t fear the reaper
Baby take my hand…don’t fear the reaper
We’ll be able to fly…don’t fear the reaper
Baby I’m your man…
Love of two is one
Here but now they’re gone
Came the last night of sadness
And it was clear she couldn’t go on
Then the door was open and the wind appeared
The candles blew then disappeared
The curtains flew then he appeared…saying don’t be afraid
Come on baby…and she had no fear
And she ran to him…then they started to fly
They looked backward and said goodby…she had become like they are
She had taken his hand…she had become like they are
Come on baby…don’t fear the reaper
You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!
Over half of my Beta Readers wanted more of the alien.
Are you sure? Are you really sure that is what you want? Okay. I give you MORE ALIEN:
The local cops called them meth maggots; the populace called them tweakers. She chose to think of them as low-hanging fruit.
How awesome is that sentence? Huh? Let me answer that question for you. It is dipped in awesomesauce that is what! That sentence is so awesome, when I wrote it I caused all fertile women within three miles of me to ovulate spontaneously.
I printed out the new scene and rubbed the paper all over my body, singing, “Who’s the man! Who’s the man!” It is that good.
Dancing to God
Interesting observation (to me): my novel The Baby Dancers has a religious background to it. Literally, when I started typing the first new chapter (in which the old first chapter became chapter eight-ish), it just spilled out as if it was some grand design from my carefully put together outline.
Only it was not. The outline for this novel runs about… fifty words. Ha.
I would like to think my inner spiritualism is shining through to my writing and I have something profound to say.
Only I do not.
Here is what I believe happened. I am quite disgusted with the Political Correctness movement. Oooo, do not talk about religion because, yanno, you might offend someone. This contempt and disdain for the PC movement bled through to my writing.
Placing a monastery in Northern Idaho without some type of religious context defied belief, so when I wrote chapters one and two I went hog-wild. In the modern theme of who we are as Americans, I made my two (awesome) protagonists religious boys. Their academic teacher is a Catholic Sister, and their parents share her Catholic roots. Their martial arts master is a Korean Christian. Big Jim, their woodsman teacher, is a Presbyterian minister Native American, while their uncle is an unapologetic Baptist. This motley group belongs to a monastery in the mountains, and they train to fight the subversive forces of evil in overt and direct ways: mainly, by hacking it with a sword. Repeatedly. Far from a forced ‘we must be diverse’ setting, this group is certainly not perfectly harmonious—but they do respect each other.
I have no idea where I am going with this now.
But as a Young Adult speculative novel it rocks.
Rocks hard.
Faunts M4 Part 2
I have wondered about you
Where will you be when this through
If all goes as planned
Will you redeem my life again?
Fire the fields the weed is sown
Water down your empty soul
Wake the sea of silent hope
Water down your empty soul
Fight your foes you’re on your own
Holy war is on the phone
Asking to please stay on hold
The bleeding loss of blood runs cold
And I need you to recover
Because I can’t make it on my own
The Strangeness of Lovers Long Gone
I have told one poor soul suffering from writer’s block that his only cure may be age. I felt like a bastard, but I felt it was my duty as an older bastard to expose the raw truth of the moment.
Hardly seems fair, but some people experience life at an even pace for a reason. How many of us can only write once we have taken in a significant portion of the world around us? The quiet assimilation of life, the time to reflect and grow, is just as powerful as rising above sudden and abrupt circumstances.
If I did not have the quiet day-in and day-out of my existence, surrounded by those I love and cherish, could I properly contemplate the observations that form the basis of my writing?
For example, the other day I was thinking of a past lover. This was not a bittersweet remembrance, but rather a simple memory of what she said. This lover was particularly intense. Despite this intensity (and I assure you it was as heady as it was smoldering, with equal parts good and bad), the things she said in passing have bubbled up somehow to the forefront of my memory. Before, it would be visions of her anger swirling around her heat and her passion.
One evening we were walking at night and the stars were out. I noticed that she looked at them and frowned. The conversation went something like this:
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“I don’t like walking under the stars,” she said.
“Why?”
“The stars at night are… creepy.”
“Okay, remember when I told you I didn’t think you were weird? I take it back.”
“Shut up!” (smack)
Why did she say that? What was she thinking? If someone told that to me today, that would interest me mightily. Many people look up at the night sky in wonder with a bit of romanticism. Was she agoraphobic, or did she know something I did not?
I was a young man at the time of this interesting revelation. I did not have the insight or the experience to explore why she felt that way. Indeed, at the time I was probably thinking about how long it would take me to get her dress over her head.
Remembering that conversation now is as if my inner-self is trying to tell me something—thinking of this lover used to make me frown. Now, however, I feel a silent curiosity. That one lone comment is very interesting. I think, dear 8.3 readers, she might be right. The stars at night are creepy.
My maturity gave me two things the other day. It inspired me to think outside of conventional speculative fiction bounds (a statement not as contradictory as it sounds), but also I no longer am bothered by remembering this lover. Perhaps, as a storyteller, I am experiencing my life at an even pace for a reason.
Momentum
What’s the conflict? What are the stakes?
These are good questions, but I have recently realized there is another aspect to a plotting “got ya”, and that is momentum. Books that seem to have “fake” conflict, that is, a novel you pick up and feel it is contrived, inadvertently has a problem with momentum.
“Show not tell” is directly related to this. There are thrilling novels I have read that are somewhat Tell, and not because the author has been granted some leeway by her readers because they are invested n the author’s previously published works. Some of that reason is that even though the novel has dropped into Tell mode, the momentum of the story is significant. Perhaps the main character “discovered” something and now we as readers now share the joy in that discovery.
Fake conflict is easy to spot because it becomes apparent that the author is trying to interject momentum back into the novel, almost as if they have realized they are in “Tell” mode and need to come out. The pacing slacked; the plot has hit a wall. CONFLICT will fix that right? Not if it is contrived!
I have been guilty of this, I admit. Now I have the Evil Eye out for it.
Sometimes I have regrets about the missing holes in my education. I have promised myself if I ever made it as a published author, I would hit writer’s conferences hard. I bet they talk about things like this in the first ten minutes of Day 1.
Sunday Reflections, 5
“Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always, even death itself.
The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for?”
—William J. Bennett
Chez Pacheco Interlude
Wife gone for the weekend.
Kitchen: Disaster
Dog: Driving me crazy
Laptop: Video going out
Cats: See dog
Sleeping alone: Horrid dream
However:
Gas fireplace: Pure warmth goodness
Piano: Still in tune
Bach: Still a genius
Bottle of wine: so very tasty
And the best thing of all?
My two boys: make me smile
Love the dim
Love the rain
Love yourself
Cigar
I can hear them making love in the other room
It is late, but not late enough
They woke me up
In those romance novels, I am supposed to go peek
Or listen and touch myself
Or a dozen other things written by someone
Who forgot what it was like to be sleepy
And woken up by someone else’s pleasure
Perhaps I am older than I think I am
Because I am annoyed
I put another pillow over my head
Now the soft sighs are softer
I think of it as a perverted lullaby
A snort of distain, and I am asleep
Dear God I am awake again
I started fishing at five, five!
“Grrrrr!”
I pause, the house is silent
So I wonder, what woke me up?
Then I smell it. Cigar smoke.
I sigh. Can’t really fault a man for wanting a cigar
After a night of… whatever… with my aunt
Ah, but he is alone, and my aunt probably asleep
Now I am less annoyed—now, I have plans!
On goes the poufy robe
I follow the smoke outside
The man seems surprised to see me
He is sting on the porch sipping brandy
And smoking a cigar. I go to the porch swing
And sit next to him.
I look at the man, and cannot help but compare
It is not nice of me, but I do. He is too skinny.
But he is a charismatic man. Powerful. Assured.
Manly.
“Hi,” he says.
“You smell like sex,
“Brandy, cigar and sex,” I say.
“Um,”
“I heard you making love,” I say.
“Well,”
“It’s horribly unfair for you to not bring your children to play with me!
“Who am I to play with?” I wail.
Okay, that may have been a little thick.
He sighs. “Sorry,” he says. The wrong thing.
“Everyone knows why you are here. So stop hiding!”
“Are you lonely?” he asks.
An honest question.
“Maybe.”
A dishonest answer.
“Look,” I say. “Make love in the daytime. Or the morning when we’ll be fishing.”
“Who will watch over you all?”
I give him a funny look. “Watch? Whatever for?”
“What if a cougar or a bad man comes along?”
I laugh. “Oh. I’ll just shoot it. Him. Her.”
He considers. “Let’s negotiate. You wash my car, I’ll bring my kids.”
“What? It’s just going to get muddy going back!”
“No car wash, no kids.”
“You’re just trying to prove you’re in charge!”
Men! I am angry!
“I am holding onto all the cards. Tell you what, clean the inside.”
“Yes,” he says, “the inside all nice and clean will be good.”
I pout
I harrumph
I agree
Then I smile
We spit on our palms and shake hands
Back to bed for me
In the day time
Good Lord above, this car is filthy!
Then I realize what they are doing
While I clean the car
I put some credit in the smart column
For both of us.
Listening to your moi moi voice
I have been thinking of voice lately. One of my favorite definitions:
Voice can be defined as the writer’s awareness and effective use of such elements as diction, tone, syntax, unity, coherence and audience to create a clear and distinct “personality of the writer,” which emerges as a reader interacts with the text.
This little gem of a page is from the Greece Central School District. Yes it’s for K-12 English Teachers. Do not underestimate the power of a good web page explaining a complex topic.
Voice is everything. I have read things that were fodder for the recycle bin, but continued because the author had an engaging voice. Critical thinking and voice: my mantra!
Oooooom…
YA SF blog updated every Friday
If you have an interest in young adult speculative fiction, check out a YA blog dedicated to science fiction.
“Hand comes out”
For you people approaching/at your 40s, and from back when MTV showed videos, we bring you “Take On Me: Literal Video Version”.
I about peed my pants.
Meanwhile…
Writing Updates:
Bunny Trouble: I have cut 12,000 words and the difficulty now is interweaving the plot and subplots based on the cuts. The action in Bunny Trouble ebb and flows, but the pacing with “sub-draft-3″ is now relentless. I am not saying that to toot my own horn either, I actually worry I am shirking setting and atmosphere.
We shall see. I am still waiting to hear from two other beta readers and the marked up manuscript from three who have already giving me feedback. The core of the book remains, as it is, which is good. Changing that would have gone from “draft 3″ to “rewrite.”
Part of Draft 3 is a new Chapter 1. It is as whimsical as it is raw. I take one of “my pretties” and show her a slice of life she did not want to see, and it broke her heart. I feel guilt for doing this. Isn’t that strange?
Ugh.
The Baby Dancers: plodding along at the speed of molasses, it is turning out to be a dynamic story that may put all my previous efforts not exactly to shame, but definitely rises to a category on its own. I write on it every day, but it is slow going because of the Bunny Trouble edits.
Life: Hey, it is not a book, but yanno, life happens. I submitted two resumes to a manager here who is looking for a clone of me to work in his group. If he brings one on, that is a big win for the consulting company I work for and a yummy bonus for me, since I am the one who found the work. I also would be finding someone a lucrative contract in this time of economic turmoil. That, my 8.3 readers, gives me the warm fuzzies.
Yesterday a strikingly attractive woman came into my office with a try of cookies and gave me one, and then left. What was up with that?
Meta: Jeepers! My blog has exploded. Hits! Links! More hits! Snarky comments in mail! Flirty banter! And BACON!
Poll Time: The alien is coming for you!
I am contemplating a new scene for my book. The alien is romping around the Olympic National Park, shooting bad guys. Which rifle should she use? Keep in mind the maximum shot length is about 300 yards. It’s really rugged territory, people. Her opponents are armed with a couple of AK-47′s an SKS or two, numerous handguns and a few sub-machine guns. She is unsure of their numbers. Her night vision is external to the scope system. She is a very good shot, on par with a Marine hog, with extensive sniping experience.
Please discuss any other suggestions in the comments.
Media Wednesday Continued: More Food!
I noticed this morning that my 8.3 readers are predominately female. Like I have ONE maybe TWO male blog readers.
So for us two, maybe three guys, I present Sammich Maker 2.0!
Get in the kitchen and make me some PIE!
Bacon apple pie, that is.
No, seriously. It’s BACON APPLE PIE.
I think I need some alone time.
Media Wednesday: Shark Attack!
If there is any doubt about where my snobby day job’s paycheck goes, here is visual proof:
nom nom nom nom
The little sharks eat sushi. Like. It. Was. Candy.
