Critiques, Posts and other Random Stuffies
The Boston terrier woke me up at 3:00 AM to be let out.
I want to be grumpy but have you seen a Boston’s face? It is irresistible. Irresistible, I tell you! Plus, it was 17 degrees F outside. I am sure he needed to go.
Anyway, made some revisions on Bunny Trouble (story of my life) making a portion of the novel that was Tell into Show (here I thought those were all gone). It was a net loss of about 100 words, so that makes me happy. The conversation I added seems a tad stilted, so it will take more polishing.
Added about 2500 words in The Baby Dancers. I was going to dive strait into the action but decided to go into action of a different sort (mouhahahaha!). The result was upping the stakes. The stakes are high for my protagonists, and the manuscript is about to burst with tension. The stage is now set for the big action scene. And what an action scene it will be.
Why? Oh I am so glad you asked. Because I have GOBLIN NINJAS, that’s why!
Ahem. I also critiqued ten chapters of a fantasy manuscript. I had pointed suggestions, but all-in-all, good stuff. I feel the writer has a new idea to an old myth, and that’s just yummy to read. I cannot wait to read more.
Finally, I am working on a big post explaining not guns, but the “gun” culture for writers. It is a slow slog. I wanted to post it yesterday, but decided to let it slide a bit, the work in progress is consuming me (because, of course, there are GOBLIN NINJAS). I have picked up a couple of additional readers. Having looked at their blogs, I am tailoring my post so it is effective for them.
Nom!
Saturday Cuteness
Alison (6): Let’s play house!
Thing Two (6): Okay!
At this point dusting with the play broom and much vacuuming with the play vacuum commences. I will admit, it is kind of cute.
Now, I need to relate that I have very good hearing and can pick up sounds that are out of place for the environment I am in. It’s a knack. A gift, if you will.
So when I heard the shower curtain being pulled back, I stopped typing on my novel.
Alison: I’m going to take a shower!
Now at this point I have a parental choice. I can assume their game is innocent and will not lead to undressing, or I can go up there now and say “perhaps fixing dinner would be better?” I decide on the former. They are not playing doctor, and the shower is a place almost all kids go when playing hide-and-seek. Running water, however, would be out of the question.
I go back to typing.
Alison: La la la, scrub scrub.
Oh man, the cuteness!
That is when I hear the toilet lid lifted. Then I hear Thing Two going pee.
Alison: What are you doing!
Thing Two: Going potty.
Alison: Bad Husband! Going potty while I am taking my shower!
Thing Two: That’s what Mommy and Daddy do!
Now I am chuckling in my chair. Let’s just say if my kids pick up modesty, they didn’t get it from the parents. Peer pressure can take care of that one for you. We’re not nudists, but the only rule we have is you have to be dressed while sitting at the dinner table. Anyway, this potty conversation has a couple of places to go, and it takes a turn towards the giggle zone.
Alison: Are you standing up to go potty?
Thing Two: Yes, I have a penis (giggle).
Alison: I have to sit (giggle).
Thing Two: That’s because you don’t have a penis (giggle).
At this point we have lots of giggles. Thankfully I hear a flush and Thing Two washing his hands. Fortunately, this potty conversation is at an end.
Or so I thought.
Thing Two: Now it’s your turn to go potty.
Alison: I don’t want to!
Thing Two: That’s what my…
Alison: No.
Thing Two: But…
Daddy: Thing Two, come down here please.
Thing Two: We were playing house.
Daddy: Thing Two, when a girl says no, you need to respect that. No means no. She doesn’t want to play that part of the game. Can you go to the bonus room and play with your toys?
Thing Two: Okay!
Thus, the conclusion of the Playing House Shower Scene of December 2008 is thankfully here.
Sunday Reflections, 13
“The news is still big. It’s the newspapers that got small.”
“We the readers, the people, are not dumbed down media serfs obsessed with celebrities, dosh and movie rights. You are.”
—Lawrence Osborne in “A Writer And Reader On Why Book Publishers Fail: They dumb everything down.”
Interesting
If I do not keep up my reading, my writing suffers. It is like a creative battery charged by words.
Time to charge my batteries! So many choices, I feel the need for some sci-fi, yes I do.
The Memory of Scent
The house smells so wonderful, with the grand fir waiting for its new tree stand, sitting in a bucket off in on corner.
My penchant for Scrooge-like feelings during the holiday season has slowly been replaced by warm memories of my children’s joy for the season. For young boys, yes, Christmas is a lot about presents. If you are a good parent, if you could overcome the bombastic rampant commercialism, there is an underlying simplicity about the season that can pull at the heart like no other time.
This morning Thing Two came in while I was getting dressed, wanting to know if we could go get Thing One’s Christmas present tonight. How cute is that? I’ll tell you how cute it is, it is a bit of the ultra-cuteness.
Yes there are the presents. But then there is the smell of the tree. The gingerbread house. The decorating. The Christmas cookies. The story of Christmas. Grandpa and Nanna. Daddy’s Christmas Day roast. Santa. The music. The warm fireplace and the happy dog.
Long after those presents are gone, the memories of our close family during this time will linger on. One day my sons will be walking in one of the great national forests around here, and after the morning rain, smell the fresh scent of grand firs. And it will smell like Christmas.
And that will be magical, always magical, even in the dead of summer, it will be Christmas magic.
Why you are not married to the Hack Writer
For context, I present to you some Wife Unit factoids:
- She is blonde
- She used to work for a major software company in Redmond, in which she helped pioneer several technical innovations
- She’s the house math whiz
So there I am, sitting next to the Wife Unit. We are in the process of exchanging snarky banter. Before the thinking part of my brain stops the other portion that dominates me, I reached behind her back, pulled an imaginary string and said “Math is hard!” in a teen girl voice.
Yes, I win the snark contest. That’s all I “won”, the icy Glare of Doom was definitely not a door prize.
What possesses me to do these things? I do not know. I feel so lucky. There is only one person on this planet who puts up with my crap, and I already found her!
By the why, if I go dark here and stop twittering, look for the lump in the backyard.
Lower the Pants or Lift the Skirt
Ken posts the opening paragraph to his latest work in progress.
Mighty Kiersten posted a snippet to her new WIP.
Every now and then, these two do the literary equivalent of running behind the barn. Meanwhile, Anthony and Alex are busy shooting each other with rubber-band guns. Inadvertently, we’ll notice they are gone.
“Did they run behind the barn again?” Alex will ask, eyes big and round.
“Uh, I think so. Let’s go peek.”
We’ll sneak around, and yes, there they are, literary show and tell.
This is were I eye Alex. “Let’s compare!”
This is where Alex usually frowns. But in the end I win, as who can resist the innocent naughtiness of the opening paragraph?
“Okay. You go first!”
Ezekiel did not lead a normal existence for a sixteen-year-old; he understood this only when Sister Lucinda made an unusual and quite uncommon announcement at dinner.
“I’m pregnant.”
Speaking of opening paragraphs, still not too late for this contest (ends at 4 PT, today, I think).
Bernie Taupin – Don’t Let the Sun go Down on Me
Don’t Let the Sun go Down on Me
Lyrics by Bernie Taupin
I can’t light no more of your darkness
All my pictures seem to fade to black and white
I’m growing tired and time stands still before me
Frozen here on the ladder of my life
Too late to save myself from falling
I took a chance and changed your way of life
But you misread my meaning when I met you
Closed the door and left me blinded by the light
Don’t let the sun go down on me
Although I search myself, it’s always someone else I see
I’d just allow a fragment of your life to wander free
But losing everything is like the sun going down on me
I can’t find, oh the right romantic line
But see me once and see the way I feel
Don’t discard me just because you think I mean you harm
But these cuts I have they need love to help them heal
And the progress is…
On Bunny Trouble, waiting for the last of the Beta Reader holdouts. In the meantime, I am editing the novel based on the marked-up manuscripts I received already. I have already made my major changes (cuts).
Bunny Trouble, I feel, will be ready for agent submission at the start of the new year. How exciting!
The Baby Dancers is where all my energy is at. Only 750 words today, but much technical research in a area those words talk about. I may be a hack, but I am also a researcher (literally). Everything that that is similar to reality must have a firm background, or it is dog chow.
Oh, and it case you missed it: GOBLIN NINJAS! I HAZ DEM!
Chapter 8 Checklist
- Confident, but appreciative progranoist, check.
- Dual-wielding katanas, check.
- Razor sharp Marine Corps WWII stiletto, check.
- Goblin ninjas—on fire, check.
- Matching Colt 1911′s with reloads—check.
- Korean martial arts, check.
Yes, it will be a romp. A ROMP I say!
A Midwinter Rant
Alex delivers the goods in a rant on the teen novels of today.
It was a yummy post, filled with pure observational goodness. Could you imagine being an English teacher and needing to recommend books for your YA students all year?
I would run out of books right around… December. 
Courtney’s book is due out at the end of the month. After that, what is there? What is the next book for Max?
Firearms and Firearm Culture for Writers, Part 1
This is the first in the series of “Firearms and Firearm Culture for Writers” posts. Today we explore a popular trend in home defense.
What are people stocking their homes with for self defense?
Increasingly, it is the AR-15.
The AR-15 carbine, or M4, is the short version of America’s rifle. It’s what the military issues to our servicemen for CQB.
The civilian model is quite popular, of course. Mine doesn’t have the switch that flips over to full auto. Otherwise, it is exactly the same in many respects.
The particular model I use is a Bushmaster Modular carbine. Attached to it is a Aimpoint Comp M3 red dot sight, a Surefire X200 light, a fore grip and sling. And for me, that’s all it needs.
The 20″ (and 24″, with ‘inch’ refering to the length of the barrel) version of the AR-15 is a popular varmint rifle (and in some states, deer) for hunting. While you can plunk at varmints with a carbine, I purchased mine for the reason 90% of the other people purchased theirs: home defense.
Why is this platform so popular? Two reasons, the inherent accuracy of the system itself and the waning use of the shotgun as a home defense weapon.
Accuracy & Lethality
The AR-15 carbine is easy to shoot. Eugene Stoner‘s design mitigates a lot of the recoil inherent with firing a rifle cartridge. Indeed, one could fire it all day.
This translates to several things: confidence and speed, two things absolutely necessary in a CQB rifle.
Despite the low recoil, as a true rifle round, the 5.56mm NATO (or the very close cousin: .223 Remington) round is an effective lethal round, compared to a pistol cartridge. Consider my sidearm I am wearing now:
G19: 9mm 124gr at 1295fps / 462 ft. lbs.
Now consider my M4:
M4: .223 Remington 55gr at 2989fps / 1091 ft. lbs
What do those numbers mean? That’s the weight of the bullet, feet per second and energy/pound. I am not going to go into the physics, but essentially, you can see the M4 is a superior weapon, because it is a rifle, not a pistol. There is an old maxim: “You use your pistol to fight to your rifle.” In this case, it’s a better weapon (assuming of course, you have it when you need it).
The terminal ballistics of the M4 is vastly superior, but it is also several times more accurate than my pistol. When engaging targets, the M4 is faster.
Speed and accuracy: what more could one ask for? I bring this all up for a reason, below.
The Slow Decline of the Shotgun as a Home Defense Weapon
On one hand I respect the choice to have a shotgun as a home defense weapon. On the other, I remain unimpressed by the shotgun for several reasons. At close ranges it is a devastating weapon. And my take on this is… so what? It also is inherently inaccurate and slow. Take a self defense class and what are you taught? Speed and accuracy. Accuracy and speed. Two things the shotgun is not.
Don’t believe me? You don’t have to: Americans vote with their wallet. The AR-15 is America’s rifle for a reason. People are buying them left and right. Shotguns are replaced with carbines. They are everywhere, because, when it comes down to the basics, a person using an AR-15 is faster and more accurate than a person using a shotgun.
There are other reasons beyond the technical in the AR-15 vs. shotgun comparison. Our men and women use the M4 to shoot the enemy in our wars, and with great effect. This has a huge impact in the mindset of the average American purchasing a rifle. I know it did with me. Basically, when it came to a purchasing decision, if it was good enough for the United State Marine Corps, it was good enough for me.
One thing, the M4 is not is cheaper than a shotgun. And to me, that is the only reason to have a shotgun as a primary defense weapon. One could argue to simply use your pistol in place of the shotgun, but that is not an argument I am qualified to make. Far from disparaging the shotgun, I appreciate it very much for this reason: for $200 you can have an excellent weapon to protect your kith and kin.
But you should save up for a M4.
Conclusion
There is a reason for this post—not just to be mildly enlightening, but as a prelude to next Sunday’s topic: The Gun Culture Explained for Writers. To write such a post, I have to provide a bit of technical context. And there it is.
M4, G17 and a random selection of books
Sunday Reflections, 12
I could say analogously that tolerance is the affable appreciation of qualities, views, and actions of other individuals which are foreign to one`s own habits, beliefs, and tastes. Thus being tolerant does not mean being indifferent towards the actions and feelings of others. Understanding and empathy must also be present….
Warning…
…Sunday I am going to blog about my M4.
You have been warned. Expect no puppies and kittens here tomorrow. Tomorrow, I speak of lethality, sight pictures, and 55 gains of pure hollow point goodness.
Empathy Rant
There are people who are born with a great amount of empathy, it is what makes them tick.
However, for everyone, not just the predisposed, empathy is a learned trait. As children we learn from our parents.
Empathy, however, as an adult, is directly tied to critical thinking. If you are unable to examine and try to understand an opposing viewpoint, you become that which you despise. Closed. Insular.
You are also incapable of empathy because you simply cannot understand where that person’s viewpoint is coming from because you simple choose to not understand. And the worse of it all, you are incapable of recognizing what you are doing, the mind closes, the coldness descends.
Empathy fail.
Pure Drip
I twist the ring on my finger
And smile at the pretty girl
She smiles back, a mix of blue
A mix of blonde
I flirt
She flirts back
I say something witty
She pretends to think
I’m witty
My eyes are warm
The hum of happiness
Is fuel for my passion
In this moment I am alive
I twist the ring on my finger
And smile again at my wife
She smiles back
A mix of blue
A mix of blonde
To Channel Your Inner Sci-Fi Moojoo, You Must Swim With the New Media
Some of the best science fiction stories lately do not come from books. While it seems that some authors are trying to grasp a straw from the playbook of the golden years of science fiction Grandmasters, there are visionary people working outside of traditional story-telling to deliver the goods. Interactively.
Take for instance, Portal. Portal is a three-dimensional puzzle computer/console game that requires spacial thinking. But it also tells a story, and is vaguely connected, in a creepy way, to another great science fiction story from a computer game, Half-Life and Half-Life 2. Set in the grand and so very bleak Half-Life universe, Portal is, at its heart, a complex tale filled with tension, foreshadowing and base malevolence hidden behind sarcastic humor. Over the course of the game, you are slowly fed this story and if you do not pay attention you can even miss it! And when you escape from the clutches of the antagonist, your are not really too sure escaping was a good idea.
My point is thus: If you want to write science fiction (and the Bunny Trouble story is science fiction which is why this subject is dear to my heart), then you have to play and understand the appeal of these games. For they are very good, and very compelling. They tell a story in such a way as to draw you in and keep you thinking about it long after it is done, much like a good science fiction book does. That is caused not just by the game itself, but in large part from the pure science fiction goodness presented to the player. If you do not understand the appeal of the great stories, in their complex universes, such as Half-Life 2, Portal, Mass Effect, etc., your future audience is limited, your readers left wanting for more.
Evolve or die.
Small Writing Update
No snark comment on the below post but I can see it coming.
Anyway, it is a truism that I would rather be writing than editing, but I love editing. Such a fun task. A beta reader points something out that goes beyond the grammatical. Do I agree with it? What can I do to fix the problem?
Last night I came across a comment that highlighted a rather glaring problem in Bunny Trouble. I fixed it by adding ten words. Ten little words. Now, I would rather fix a problem by cutting ten words, but I’ve already done that. I’ve removed 20k from the version I gave my coveted beta readers. This type of manuscript smithing tickles me to no end.
As much as I like my job, I would love to write full-time. It takes a non-zero amount of time to edit. Sometimes that time is expensive.
If I could just talk to the cleaning people into lending me some Drain-O, I can complete the car bomb before Erika goes home
Since Kiersten showed a nifty look into her past writing, I dug this old message I wrote so long ago, kind of like a blogging “I’ll show you mine if you will show me yours.” From 1992. Now I know some of you were not BORN before 1992. For that, I forgive you. Kinda.
Anyway, I am thankful I have nothing that I wrote while I was twelve, because I am more than certain it would be nowhere near as good as Kiersten’s.
This flew around the internet for awhile and lives on some archives. At some point, someone changed some of the spelling and grammar (for example, changing taser to laser). But as far as I can tell, below is the original version with an intro that some unknown person wrote. Everything beyond the email header is me.
To provide a small amount of context, the Charlotte office would sometimes cover for the Bellevue office on the West Coast, which is why we were all working from 10ish to 9.
For you coffee lovers, enjoy.
*******************************************
In October 1992, the ABU support team in Bellevue sent care packages of Starbuck’s coffee, chocolate covered coffee beans, and Frangos to the North Carolina and Texas ABU teams. This is one NC engineer’s account of what happened next….
From: Anthony Pacheco
Subject: Thanks for the Care Package!
Date: Thursday, October 29, 1992 11:35AM
Bryce,
I say, the care package you sent was a big hit here, thanks! Below is a chronological description of the care package consumption:
Sometime before Friday: The Care package arrives. I resist all temptation to open the package and consume an entire box of Frangos. Very impressive.
Friday 9:45 AM: I arrive early to work and open the care package that was hidden under my desk. I ‘m amazed at all the good stuff in side, but somewhat disappointed to find that there were two boxes of Frango (or what ever they are calling them now) chocolate mints: I could have eaten a box and nobody would have known. Oh well. I make a pot of coffee using the robust Yukon blend, and eat three or four chocolate covered expresso beans. I send a message to NCABU announcing the goodies.
10:00 AM: The pot of coffee is gone and ErikaPh, my manager, makes another, which of course I have to sample. All the items are a big hit with everybody so far, except the chocolate covered espresso beans, which are only popular with the real coffee fans (who absolutely love them). Not letting a good thing go to waste, I have a couple more, a mint or two, and start on my second cup of coffee. I notice Erika actually drank two cups from this pot, and I start to wonder how I could approach my manager about making sure she leaves enough coffee for the rest of the queue.
10:10 AM: The pot of coffee is out again so HarveyY makes another. I of course must sample the Cafe Verona blend and indulge in a few more chocolate covered espresso beans. Erika again drinks two more cups of coffee. I frown but say nothing and in my depression eat another Frango chocolate mint.
10:30 AM: There has been a single cup of coffee left for some time, and not to let it go to waste, I drink it.
11:00 AM: KevinCo sees the empty coffee pot so he makes another, and then fills my cup under protest. Erika again drops by and fills her mug, and pilfers some chocolate covered espresso beans. For some strange reason, my typing speed has increased from, 25 WPM to 60 WPM,
11:45 AM: For some (unknown) reason, I feel agitated. To bleed of all the excess energy coming from nowhere, I do 92 pushups while helping a University of Oregon grad student with Excel. Out the window I notice Erika is on her second lap running around the building. After all that exercise, I feel thirsty, so I drink another cup of coffee and for a snack down a few more chocolate covered espresso beans.
12:10 PM: I now notice that there are people dropping by my cube that usually don’t, in fact, I’ve seen the entire queue come by and sample some goodies. I try to chat, but for some reason people seem interested in just sampling the various yummy Frangos and the chocolate-almond mocha’s. Erika stops by for more coffee and we exchange unpleasantries. I don’t recall the exact conversation, but I do remember the phrases “useless stingy middle-manager” and “whinny engineer”. For therapy I eat a few more chocolate covered espresso beans and try to look up how to make a car bomb on Internet’s rec.pursuits.anarchy.
1:00 PM: I skip lunch, but do drink another cup of coffee and make another pot by request. Getting bored, I pick up the Charlotte phone book and start dialing people at random, asking if they need any help with Excel. Erika comes by for another cup of coffee. I miss her with the stapler, but she wings me a good one with one of those cube coat hooks.
2:00 PM: The entire queue, I believe, is wired with caffeine and sugar. I, being a Seattle native, am immune to these effects. MikeNa is 10 minutes into teaching his 2nd impromptu aerobics class. It is very interesting to watch engineers do jumping jacks while holding their Aspect phones.
3:00 PM: HarveyY has built a small shrine for the coffee pot in the empty cube next to me, and the low humming has started to get on my nerves: “Huummmmm [sip] Hummmm [sip] Hummmmm [sip].” Some people, I swear.
3:30 PM: The Starbucks Guatemalan blend has been polished off, and a fight has ensued in the hallway on whether to ration the chocolate covered espresso beans for later or continue with the consumption. Hastily, I build a taser pistol out of my MS Mouse card and the power supply from my Mac II CI, and the fight quickly ends. MikeNa shows up and drags the unconscious rebels back to their desks.
4:00 PM: If I could just talk to the cleaning people into lending me some Drain-O, I can complete the car bomb before Erika goes home. The coffee pot is empty again so of course I make another. Nice guy that I am, I drink a cup to sample the brew and deem it Most Excellent. I have a couple of Frango mints to compensate for skipping lunch.
5:00 PM: KevinCo informs me that Erika has been slipping by in camouflage spandex to siphon off coffee with a long straw. I thank him for this valuable intelligence information. In a time-honored Seattle Male Bonding Ritual, we eat 5 chocolate covered espresso beans each.
6:15 PM: I send mail to the entire queue announcing a fresh pot of coffee (after drinking a cup first) and await Erika to sneak by with glee.
6:20 PM: I caught Erika red-handed. I dodge the pen she tried to stab me with, and landed a good blow to her left kidney. As she is crawling back to her desk I hear her mumble something about “time to write a review”.
6:25 PM I panic and in desperation, log on to the mail server with a VTP connection. I hack my way into Erika’s Xenix mail spool file and quickly write, in the Xenix Borne C Shell, a program that will send an email message every 30 seconds using Erika’s email name. I address it to the only people on campus at the time, Corporate Security, and title the message, “I Want Bill Gate’s Love Child!”. I “cc” ingate!ALL@ibm.com and ingate!JScully@apple.com just for giggles and grins.
7:30 PM: Two security guards show up, one drags Erika away and the other starts packing her desk. I laugh hideously at her shrieks of protest, and in celebration jump in my girl friend’s sports car and drive around the Charlotte Coliseum several times at 120 MPH.
8:00 PM: I’m feeling really tired. KevinCo points out that there still an entire box of chocolate covered espresso beans left. Not wanting them to go to waste, we each eat half a box.
9:00 PM After successfully typing my 3rd impromptu novel while helping Betty from Orlando with a data consolidation, MikeNa announces that the queue has been shut off. After the phone call I drink 14 complementary beers, and for some unknown reason, still couldn’t get to sleep that night.
Courtney, Part II
Courtney Summers posts a good follow up to her prior post on writing for the YA market.
I feel full of vim and snark, which is somewhat like vim and vigor, only more, um, snarky. In her original post she asked some mighty good questions. My take, a long-winded reply, alluded to Courtney’s own answer: Be true to the story.
Courtney was talking about truth and I was talking about honesty, which are almost the same thing. There is a nuance I was trying to convey (and failed), which is you can be true to yourself as a writer, but dishonest with your story.
How can that be? I am not entirely sure I can explain it correctly. But I can tell you for certain, Max knows. Max wrote about almost the exact same thing. He says:
“Another giant, oily blemish on the face of teenage literature (that was entirely intentional) is whatever urge compels writers to clumsily smash morals about fairness or honor or other cornball crap onto otherwise fine stories. Do you not think we get enough of that in our parents’ and teachers’ constant attempts to shove the importance of justice and integrity down our throats? We get it. I assure you, it makes no difference in our behavior at all. And we will not become ax murderers because volume 120 of Otherworld: The Generica Chronicles didn’t smother us in morals that would make a Care Bear cringe.”
I know, I know, it seems like my poor blog is Courtney Courtney Courtney blah blah. But she is talking directly to why I toss books in the recycle bin. Literally. I come across a story I deem dishonest and I throw it away. I will not expose my children to it.
Here’s my ultimate take. A story is sometimes dishonest despite the author’s intent because he did the easy thing, rather than the hard thing. A morality tale can be an excellent story, even one Max would like.
If it is told in an honest fashion.
“Truth is sought for its own sake. And those who are engaged upon the quest for anything for its own sake are not interested in other things. Finding the truth is difficult, and the road to it is rough.”
My friends—all I simply ask—write about what is, not what you wish it to be.
By the way, you can thank Courtney for these little bits of wisdom by buying her book.
