michaeljasper.net
"Another Wrecked Web Site"
April 30, 2002
Break on through to the other, um, month...?
Now Reading:
Asimov's, June 2002
Now Playing:
"Riviera," Big Head Todd & The Monsters
I decided to do something wild and crazy tonight. Setting aside all the books I've been wanting and needing to read, I decided to -- hold onto your hats! -- do some writing instead.
Now I know, this may seem a bit drastic to y'all, but hey, I do claim every now and then to be a writer, so I figured I do some of that key-tapping that I enjoy so much. And folks, I actually got a lot done, and had fun doing it! I'm working on chapter 10 now, and decided to start it with a flashback/dream sequence, and it's turning into something very fun to write (even if it's a bit gruesome, really -- see the quote).
I've had a couple folks read my stuff and comment on how "dark" it is. That surprises me sometimes. I'm usually a pretty positive guy. I guess I like to write about the darker emotions sometimes. But I'm really not as grumpy and negative as my fiction may imply. Usually...
Quick Tangent -- speaking of language and communication, Lizzie and I were talking tonight about how overwhelming a concept "language" is, when you think about it. For her, as an occupational therapist, imagine how hard it would be to show someone who's lost the ability to read or understand words or spoken language how to do those things, say after that person's had a stroke. We take so much of these things for granted. It's fascinating to think about -- all I'm doing as a writer is linking together letters into words into paragraphs. And a word is just a symbol, in one of the many languages we Earthlings speak.
So, anyhoo, where was I?
Oh yeah, writing tonight. I finally got out of my mini-slump and did some more drafting, and I quite happy. Occasionally I get a little stressed when a couple days pass and I don't get any writing done, and I feel like I'm just wasting my life away, not doing what I feel like is my true calling. So tonight was a nice validation of that. I feel like doing some sort of howling-at-the-moon thing now. Ahem. Be right back. Arooo!
Today's quote:
One of the females, her squirming hair held back in a plastic clip, reaches a short-fingered hand up to Jenae. Her long gray body rocks forward then back suddenly, as if she’s trying to get her balance. The male next to her, wearing cuffed-up, second-hand jeans with holes and patches just like the other Wannoshay, also raises his hand. The eye in the middle of each wide forehead remains closed, and the night air is thick with the salty smell of the aliens.
The moment is there. Ally feels her own hand move, poised to either knock the Blur from Jenae’s quivering hand, or grab the capsules and run. She can do it. She has to do it. The moment is there, but Ally allows it to pass by.
Instead, the two Wannoshay take a capsule and, following Jenae’s hand movements, place it in their lipless mouths. Their black eyes widen as they swallow. More gray hands reach for Jenae, the pink capsules disappearing, and Ally can’t watch it anymore.
April 29, 2002
The start of something critical...
The first of my short fiction reviews for Tangent Online are posted! You'll need to be a Tangent subscriber (only $5 a year!) to read them right now, or you can be a tightwad and wait a couple weeks when they are posted for all to read.
These were both more fun and more difficult than I'd expected. I expect the latter to decrease as I get better at this, and the former to increase. Later!
April 28, 2002
Whew, again...
Just a quick entry here to say howdy. It's been yet another working weekend for both Elizabeth and me, though we did have a good time watching "The Royal Tenenbaums" on Friday night at Raleighwood. I liked the film a lot, laughed my butt off at the weird humor, but found it didn't really stick with me much. Quirky film. I'll get it on DVD one day, I think. I liked the literary-ness of it, but some of the events toward the end felt a bit contrived.
I'm feeling critical lately because I've been writing reviews today. Fun stuff. Once they're online I'll let you know more.
I've also started reading the next big-ass anthology for my workshop in late May. This one's the mystery one, and it's good, but reading a bunch of stories about sullen cops and murders and grisly details and all that can be a bit draining. I've never been much of a fan of that stuff. I like my reading spiced with more imagination -- the real world is crappy enough without writing a story about fictional violence.
And as for my own writing, I didn't get anything done on the Wannoshay novel. I did do a bunch of copying and pasting to my NEXT novel, The City of All-Worlds, which is an expansion of that novelette I revised last week. I really like that story, and I plan on getting into that one as soon as the Wannoshay novel's done (June or July, I hope).
I also updated my Publishers Marketplace Author Page, which spiked up as high as #2 last week thanks to you kind folks and your mouses! Thankee thankee. Now I gotta run. See ya later.
April 26, 2002
Three dozen stories (or so)...
Now Playing:
"Unplugged," Nirvana
So I finished reading The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror finally.
Overall, it was really, really good. I'm guessing I'll like this antho the best of all the others I'll be reading in the next month. Fantasy is the genre I enjoy most, and even the horror stories in this antho, with the exception of a couple of 'em, were pretty good.
One thing I learn is that a lot of the stories don't really get going until a page or so into the story. Lots of descriptive introductions, setting the scene, and sometimes not even getting to the main character right away. I think part of this is because once a writer becomes established, editors can cut them more slack, and their openings become more like the openings to a novel. I prefer to be sucked in right away with a story, like Harlan Ellison's story -- "You've asked me to file this report, so that's what I'm doing." Or have a sense of strangeness or mystery, like Justin Tussing's tale -- "Munjoy hing in a clever, leather harness." (I like that story the more I think about it, except for the ending.)
Maybe that immediate grabber for the first sentence is something that's taught in various workshops, as it seems most of the younger, less established writers (like me!) seem to use it.
Anyway, without further yakking, here are my 10 favorite stories from the anthology, and why I liked 'em.
10. "Greedy Choke Puppy," Nalo Hopkinson -- A nice, tightly written, surprising tale with a fine ending that wasn't expected but wholly logical.
9. "The Man on the Ceiling," Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem -- A disturbing, "true" reflection about the nature of our fears and the great unknown, and how writers attempt to embrace that mystery and place a name on the unnameable; it would've gotten a higher rating if it wasn't so darn post-modern -- there's no plot for a traditionalist like me to sink my teeth into.
8. "Le Mooze," Louise Erdrich -- A constantly-feuding husband and wife catch a moose in their lake and the husband has to figure out what to do with it. Hilarious and touching by story's end.
7. "Ship, Sea, Mountain, Sky," Gavin Grant and Kelly Link -- A richly-imagined world where the bones of the dead come back to the living as ornaments instead of ghosts.
6. "The Artificial Cloud," Justin Tussing -- A dwarf spies on the enemy king and the king's lover, reporting in detail back to his own king in this clever story. Just take out that last sentence and I'm happy.
5. "The Saltimbanques," Terry Dowling -- This coming-of-age story is rich with a clever mixture of science and magic and all places in between, sort of a Harry Potter meets the gypsies in Australia.
4. "The Cavemen in the Hedges," Stacey Richter -- By far the funniest and most surreal story in the collection, I loved this one from the first sentence to the last: "I get into my hatchback and listen to bad news on the radio as I drive home."
3. "The Pottawattamie Giant," Andy Duncan -- Mixing actual events and people with a fantasy twist that changes everything, this is a story of what could be if we're given a second chance. And it's a lot more than that, too.
2. "Mr. Dark's Carnival," Glen Hirshberg -- As much a history and travelogue of the rural Montana landscape as a horror story, this story had an ending that rivals the movie "The Sixth Sense" for its shock factor, leaving me want to reread it immediately. Great haunted house in this one, too.
1. "Hallowmass," Esther Friesner -- A beautiful story, elegantly told, with every tiny detail of the plot coming to a wonderful denoument by story's end. A perfect ending to this anthology.
April 25, 2002
Click these links! No cost to you!
NOTE: Lots of horn-tooting in this entry. Don't say I didn't warn you.
But before I get to the shameless bragging, let me direct you to my Author Site. Click the link. Go on. Make me one of the most-visited pages on the site. Maybe an agent will take note after seeing all the traffic my page gets there and want to read my novels.
Okay, so there's that. Now on to the other fun stuff -- story reviews!
I learned of two more reviews of my story "Working the Game" -- one at Tangent Online, still the best site for short-fiction reviews, and one at SFReader.com, where the reviewer called my story a "spectacular success" (among many other kind things).
So check them out and enjoy! Later.
April 24, 2002
A performance deserving of standing ovations...
Now Reading:
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, edited by Datlow and Windling (still!)
Now Playing:
"Rock Steady," No Doubt
Finally got it done! Yeah babee. After lots of tweaking, copying and pasting, and lots and lots of cutting, I managed to get "The City of All-Worlds" down to 15,000 words on the nose. And it's good, really good. The ending that I'd originally had got stuck back on, and I got rid of one character and enhanced the role of another character.
So I get to send that out today, and then it's back to the novel. With 14 stories out to publishers right now, my all-time personal best, I feel quite accomplished. And I know after the workshop in May I'll have at least 3 more stories to send out. Very cool.
And tonight I get to hang out with Lizzie in her office while I read. We've both had a busy couple of weeks. Once again, I'm ready for the weekend. Later!
Today's quote:
Peet nodded, wondering what sort of good he’d be in a fight. He hadn’t learned more than the basic spells of sorcery from Bartamus, and he doubted his ability to throw his voice or imitate a statue would be useful in getting his master and the others close to the Portal.
“Come, boy,” Master Bartamus said, motioning to Peet as he struggled to sit up in his bed. “You are my memory know. Join us for my last adventure, the last ride of the Lowlies and the Riverrun Alley Dwellers.”
Peet helped Bartamus to his feet, and master and apprentice followed the stout woman and the two otherworlders to the mouth of the cave. Bartamus stepped in front of them and turned to face them. His eyes glowing with a greenish-blue fire, he lifted his frail arms wide.
“For King Dunimic!” Bartamus cried, falling backwards out of the cave. Peet felt his body lift up, pulled by his master’s power. The old man had not fallen onto the rocks below, but instead was floating above the cave, his four followers held in his grip. With a sudden rush of air, the five companions rose into the air and flew like hawks into the north, with the keys to the locked City of All-Worlds gripped tight in the hands of Bartamus the sorcerer.
April 23, 2002
A nooner...
Now Reading:
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, edited by Datlow and Windling (still!)
Now Playing:
"Radio Free Virgin Liquid Lounge" (some station on my Windows Media Player -- techno and electronic music)
Took some time over my lunch break at work to do some hacking at a novella I'm trying to turn into a novelette. The novelette (I've been writing that word a lot lately, and I still really hate it) is "The City of All-Worlds," and it came from my aborted attempt at a novel from late last year.
I've been wanting to do some more work on it, and while I'm not ready to work on it as a novel, I want to send a shorter version of it to the Imaginings anthology, just for kicks. It started out as 22,000 words, and over lunch I was able to whittle it down to 17,000 words. For the antho it can't be longer than 15,000 words, so I've got some more chopping to do, which is kind of therapeutic, in a way. It's like cutting away all the excess and getting to the heart of the story.
And once I get it under 15k, I still need an ending! I think I've got a lead on one or two ideas.
I may do more work on it tonight, but I've really got a lot of reading to do, so I may not get more writing done. But I did my hour, so I'm happy. Later.
Now, back to work. Sigh...
Today's quote:
He still stood, looking at me with a quizzical expression, as if he wondered where I came from. Though the witch had fallen from table, Graythorn’s dagger was lodged in his chest. The King’s last action in this world was a final swing of his sword, beheading the otherworld witch with his dying breath. The witch’s sisters screamed in unison even as the armored guardian encased them in a bristling field of energy that rendered them immobile. Graythorn slipped away from the other guardian just as the King’s advisor slipped into the metal door hiding the Portal. The soldier’s face dropped when he saw his own dagger imbedded in his King’s chest, and that was when I turned to run.