February News, 2002

michaeljasper.net
"Another Wrecked Web Site"

Feb. 10, 2002

Gunning for a conclusion...

Now Playing:

"Satellite Rides," Old 97's

Now Reading:

Brainbox 2

Today's Quote:

I lived in Berlin for over a decade after that. The others drifted apart from me, but promised they’d write. We kept off all bridges.

Today's Words:

1,600

February's Words:

5,100

From later:

Finished a very rough draft of "Buddha." I love the ending, one of my better ones, if I say so myself, but I may need to work on some of the buildup and characterizations. We'll see. I'm gonna send it to my buddy Chris to get his take on it. I really don't know if it makes any sense or not. I kind of like that. I felt the same way with "Natural Order," so maybe that's a good sign, huh?

I also did some messing around with "Ghetto Celebration," moving some scenes around and trying to figure out what to do with that one. Part of me wants to take the holiday stuff out of it, to make it more saleable. But another part of me likes that aspect. I'll have to think on it some more.

And finally, I'm excited about getting back to the Wannoshay novel at last, after much too long a time away from it. I have some new ideas for the characters and aliens in that one. Should be fun! Later.

From earlier:

Well, I've added another 1,000 words to my draft of "Gunning for the Buddha," and it's almost there. I just need to flesh out another scene, and then go back and develop the narrator and her four sidekicks. I think the story's pretty strong so far. I just need to get it all together. Nothing exciting, just lots of tweaking.

I'd planned on getting a ton of stuff done tomorrow, but the world was conspiring against me all day. We had visitors, then my computer kept acting up, and I finally gave up and did all our errands yesterday so we'd have all day today to get caught up on writing and homework.

We checked out new monitors -- mine keeps crapping out on me, which is completely annoying. Not much you can do when you can't see what you're doing! That sort of stuff drives me bonkers. Luckily I was able to borrow the kick-butt laptop of my brother-in-law, which comes with Windows XP, which I like (tho it's a totaly Apple ripoff!) and all sorts of neat doodads. I ordered a flat-panel screen from Gateway which I hope will get here Tuesday or Wednesday (I know UI said I wouldn't order from them again, but there stuff is the cheapest).

Not much else new. Just getting some good writing done and still recovering a bit from Friday's fondue-fest. Too much cheese in my bloodstream... Later.
comment or e-mail me

Feb. 9, 2002

Goals for the weekend...

Now Playing:

"America: A Tribute to Heroes," various artists

Now Reading:

Brainbox II

Today's Words:

0

February's Words:

3,500 (yeah, I know, I'm down 5,500 words!)

Man, the number of typos and mistakes in yesterday's entry was appalling. I've spared you the pain and confusion by fixing up most of them, including the heinous, sacriligious mistake of attributing an Everclear album to Pearl Jam. Doh! But one of the joys of the Internet is that you can always go back and fix stuff, unlike printed works.

It's Saturday morning, post-fondue, and I'm trying to get myself ready for the weekend so I can make the most of my time. I've put the novel on hold once again so I can finish two of my lingering projects: "Gunning for the Buddha" and my Writing SpecFic class. If you think about it, these two goals go together nicely, like melted chocolate and pinapples, or crusty bread and melted cheese, or raw chicken and boiling broth (where DOES he come up with these analogies? Amazing.). The class is all about writing short stories, so I can use some of the processes I'm going through as I finish the story in my class curriculum.

It just takes time, putting both story and class together. The story stands at 2,800 words, and I have 2 of my 8 lesson plans done. Tune in later to see how much I get done.

In related news, I got to see the "galleys" for my story "A Feast at the Manor," coming up at NeverWorlds on Monday. I'd forgotten how long that story is -- I'd probably chop about 1,000 words from it now. They have a graphic for the story that at first surprised me, because it wasn't what I'd imagined for the bugs in the story, but I really, really love it now, and it fits my description of it to the T. And by Monday they say they're gonna animate it! Too cool. Go check out NeverWorlds -- they're doing great work there, and making the most of the Internet's potential.

A lot going on these days -- the Day Job kicked my arse this week, so I really want to do my own writing this weekend. And at some point I wanna finish reading Brainbox II just so you don't have to see that all the time on my "Now Reading" sidebar! I plan on finishing Tim's cool story "Behemoth" this morning. So much to do, so little time! And I wouldn't have it any other way. Take care, all!
comment or e-mail me

Feb. 8, 2002

Grrr... Technical Editors... Grrr...

Now Playing:

"So Much for the Afterglow," Everclear

Now Reading:

Brainbox II

Holee cannolli! (I don't care if I spelt that right or not.) I just got done keying in a buttload of frickin' edits for my manual here at the Day Job. Get this -- the manual is 120 pages. I compiled all the edits using the Comments feature in Adobe, and the EDITS are 25 pages long! What's wrong with this picture???

So I didn't get anything done today beside the edits, along with moving into my new office. Not too shabby, actually -- I'm jamming to Everclear and nobody is bothered by it. "You always try to be everything to everyone! Spin around and fall down..."

Elizabeth is the best -- she stopped by work yesterday and moved almost all my stuff into the office (my former manager left last April, and I haven't gotten around to moving in 'til now, and of course they haven't replaced him!). She put my pictures on the wall and got the all-important pens and paperclips in order. And she left a message from Whit and Pumpking on the white board for me. She's too cool -- I ended up working much later than I'd planned, so she stopped by to pick me up and moved me from my cube into my new digs while I finished up my stuff.

Speaking of pets, I guess I need a photo of Rudy2 one of these days. Yep, Rudy v. 2.0 has outlived his namesake by 24 hours and counting! Go Rudy, Go Rudy! I guess this one ain't too small for his size...

Going to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics tonight with friends while we break in our new fondue pot. Should be... interesting, if not totally messy. I feel sort of 70s when I type the word fondue. Later...
comment or e-mail me

Feb. 4, 2002

Longish day, longer night!

Now Playing:

"New Favorite," Alison Kraus and Union Station

Now Reading:

Brainbox II

Today's Quote:

The wall was going down by the time we drove up. Everyone pushed forward to get a piece of the wall, a crush of bodies like corpses standing up and leaning forward, but I was able to get the chunk I needed. I snatched the triangular piece of broken concrete with his spray-painted face on it. Smiling at me. But this time I smiled back, because I knew his game now.

From much later:

Hello. It's just after midnight, and I just added another 2,000 words to my story "Gunning for the Buddha." This story just sort of took off tonight, becoming its own crazy entity. I blame the two extra-tall gin and tonics I made myself after Lizzie went to bed early (she was feeling sick and flu-like from a bug she must've caught from her parents). So I built a fire and messed around with some stories, and made myself an outline for this story, then started writing it, and here I am. And I'm gonna be hurting tomorrow morning as I try to get up for work... Oh well, what can you do? An artist must suffer for his art, right??? G'night.

From later:

Yeah, I'm still here, journalling away, though the Sff.Net servers were down for upgrades over the weekend. So I couldn't post 'til now. Were ya able to get by without your Mikey fix.

Yeah, I knew you'd be okay!

If I can keep my monitor from cutting off on me, I can finish this entry and go do some reading. After all my revising this weekend, I have a little more to do on my SF/F story, "Ghetto Celebration, which got rejected today. I plan on sending it out tomorrow morning, maybe after taking out the xmas-related stuff in it and making it a bit grittier -- no rest for the wicked, y'know.

Oh yeah, when you have a sec, go check out Tim Pratt's fine story, Little Gods, up at Strange Horizons. Great story, Tim! Yet another fun pub for Mr. Prolific Pratt. I'm just glad I got to see an earlier version of this! I printed it out and I'm gonna compare the two (and see if he took ALL my oh-so-excellent advice!). And then I get to read his story "Behemoth" in Brainbox II, along with some other fine tales. I read the first 2, and they really got under my skin, especially Mehitobel Wilson's (literally, that one got UNDER my skin...)!

I'm feeling quite good tonight, after a sluggish morning at the Day Job that turned into a hectic afternoon. All I can say about that is this: Naps at work are the best thing since bread came sliced! Later!

From earlier:

The novels are off! At the low, low price of $30.45, I overnighted them to my potential agent in New York City. So now I get to sit back and wait.

Oh and maybe do some new writing. As soon as I get my energy back! Later.
comment or e-mail me

Feb. 3, 2002

One down, one to go...

Now Playing:

"Vitalogy," Pearl Jam

Now Reading:

Brainbox II

From later:

Okay, the big game's over, the commercials were a bit dull (I think my favorite ones were the Bud Light commercials, especially the one with the satin sheets and the romantic candlelights, when the guy goes sliding off the sheets and out the window in his birthday suit!). It's funny how few dot com ads there were. All I can remember are the sorta funny eTrade ads with the dancing monkey and the CEO. The game was okay, too, I guess. I just don't get into football anymore. Gimme a good ACC basketball game if I have to watch sports.

And the novels are both revised and reread and ready to be printed! I feel very happy with all I've done to them. They're outta here tomorrow. Wish me luck! Later.

From earlier:

It's about 12:30 in the afternoon, and I just finished revising the heck out of the horror novel. Whew. I'm very pleased with it, and I know it reads much, much better. I was also able to add some nifty details here and there, like the quote on the left that gives a tiny foreshadowing of Jake's condition and really nails his physical description. I love it when my writing accomplishes two things for the price of one!

I added over a thousand words to the novel, bringing it to over 105,000 words, a very good size. My other novels are on the short side (Prodigal is only 72,000 words, while Last of the Hand is a bit longer at 82k), so it's nice to pack all that "stuff" into one book. I plan on priting out both novels tomorrow and overnight it before lunch.

But of course I need to reread as much of Prodigal before then... And find time to watch the Super Bowl with Lizzie, and most of all, celebrate the 7-year anniversary of the day we first met! Seven years -- how wild is that? They've been the best damn 7 years I've had in my life. We're gonna grab some gourmet Chinese food from Raleigh's best ethnic restaurant, Red Dragon, and bring it home in time for the first commercials -- I mean kickoff -- tonight. See ya!
comment or e-mail me

Feb. 1, 2002

New month, new Dare, old novels to fix up...

Now Playing:

"Version 2.0" (how fitting!), Garbage

Now Reading:

The Prodigal Sons, by Michael J. Jasper
Brainbox I & II

Well I'll be damned. Just when I thought I was wasting my time with my Writer's listing at Publisher's Marketplace, I get up this a.m. to find an email from a NYC agent who wants to see some of my novels. So the rest of my time, from now 'til Monday, I'll be busy fixing those novels up and getting them ready to overnight to the agent on Monday.

And hey, look who's in the top 10 of this month's most visited pages at the home site of Publisher's Marketplace! It's probably from me hitting it the past day or so (and the month is only 12 hours old!), but I'll take whatever I can get these days!!! Now if I can just get a response from that other agent on The Last of the Hand...

Must focus... Continue writing... The publications will come... All in good time...

I really need to get all this miscellaneous stuff in my life locked down, like this website I'm helping with, all the various journal entries I've been making here (I need to limit my entries to after I get my writing done, and not do them at work!), the two classes I'm prepping to teach at some point (if I ever finish one, and if anyone shows up for the other!), getting my computers at home networked and up to full speed (I curse Gateway for not getting in touch with me about my memory card -- no more Gateway for me!), and all the various distractions I've had for the whole month of January. February, I vow, will be better!

The plan is to do Camille's Dare of 1,000 words a day, as I continue work on the SF novel. My goal is to get The Wannoshay Cycle nearly half-done by March 1, up to 50,000 words. This Dare is, of course, starting after this weekend, which is devoting to polishing up my first two novels before sending them to the Big Apple. And after I fix up "The Disillusionist," which I decided to send to Realms of Fantasy. At some point this weekend I'd love to read the two Brainbox anthologies, which contain stories by fellow writing buds Tim P, Brian H, and many more.

Pant, pant, pant. Too much stuff flying around in my OWN brainbox right now. Must chill out. Talk to you later!

News

comment or e-mail me

	michaeljasper.net *"Another Wrecked Web Site"*
Feb. 10, 2002 Gunning for a conclusion... Now Playing: "Satellite Rides," Old 97's Now Reading: Brainbox 2 Today's Quote: I lived in Berlin for over a decade after that. The others drifted apart from me, but promised they’d write. We kept off all bridges. Today's Words: 1,600 February's Words: 5,100	From later: Finished a very rough draft of "Buddha." I love the ending, one of my better ones, if I say so myself, but I may need to work on some of the buildup and characterizations. We'll see. I'm gonna send it to my buddy Chris to get his take on it. I really don't know if it makes any sense or not. I kind of like that. I felt the same way with "Natural Order," so maybe that's a good sign, huh? I also did some messing around with "Ghetto Celebration," moving some scenes around and trying to figure out what to do with that one. Part of me wants to take the holiday stuff out of it, to make it more saleable. But another part of me likes that aspect. I'll have to think on it some more. And finally, I'm excited about getting back to the Wannoshay novel at last, after much too long a time away from it. I have some new ideas for the characters and aliens in that one. Should be fun! Later. From earlier: Well, I've added another 1,000 words to my draft of "Gunning for the Buddha," and it's almost there. I just need to flesh out another scene, and then go back and develop the narrator and her four sidekicks. I think the story's pretty strong so far. I just need to get it all together. Nothing exciting, just lots of tweaking. I'd planned on getting a ton of stuff done tomorrow, but the world was conspiring against me all day. We had visitors, then my computer kept acting up, and I finally gave up and did all our errands yesterday so we'd have all day today to get caught up on writing and homework. We checked out new monitors -- mine keeps crapping out on me, which is completely annoying. Not much you can do when you can't see what you're doing! That sort of stuff drives me bonkers. Luckily I was able to borrow the kick-butt laptop of my brother-in-law, which comes with Windows XP, which I like (tho it's a totaly Apple ripoff!) and all sorts of neat doodads. I ordered a flat-panel screen from Gateway which I hope will get here Tuesday or Wednesday (I know UI said I wouldn't order from them again, but there stuff is the cheapest). Not much else new. Just getting some good writing done and still recovering a bit from Friday's fondue-fest. Too much cheese in my bloodstream... Later. comment or e-mail me
Feb. 9, 2002 Goals for the weekend... Now Playing: "America: A Tribute to Heroes," various artists Now Reading: Brainbox II Today's Words: 0 February's Words: 3,500 (yeah, I know, I'm down 5,500 words!)	Man, the number of typos and mistakes in yesterday's entry was appalling. I've spared you the pain and confusion by fixing up most of them, including the heinous, sacriligious mistake of attributing an Everclear album to Pearl Jam. Doh! But one of the joys of the Internet is that you can always go back and fix stuff, unlike printed works. It's Saturday morning, post-fondue, and I'm trying to get myself ready for the weekend so I can make the most of my time. I've put the novel on hold once again so I can finish two of my lingering projects: "Gunning for the Buddha" and my Writing SpecFic class. If you think about it, these two goals go together nicely, like melted chocolate and pinapples, or crusty bread and melted cheese, or raw chicken and boiling broth (where DOES he come up with these analogies? Amazing.). The class is all about writing short stories, so I can use some of the processes I'm going through as I finish the story in my class curriculum. It just takes time, putting both story and class together. The story stands at 2,800 words, and I have 2 of my 8 lesson plans done. Tune in later to see how much I get done. In related news, I got to see the "galleys" for my story "A Feast at the Manor," coming up at NeverWorlds on Monday. I'd forgotten how long that story is -- I'd probably chop about 1,000 words from it now. They have a graphic for the story that at first surprised me, because it wasn't what I'd imagined for the bugs in the story, but I really, really love it now, and it fits my description of it to the T. And by Monday they say they're gonna animate it! Too cool. Go check out NeverWorlds -- they're doing great work there, and making the most of the Internet's potential. A lot going on these days -- the Day Job kicked my arse this week, so I really want to do my own writing this weekend. And at some point I wanna finish reading Brainbox II just so you don't have to see that all the time on my "Now Reading" sidebar! I plan on finishing Tim's cool story "Behemoth" this morning. So much to do, so little time! And I wouldn't have it any other way. Take care, all! comment or e-mail me
Feb. 8, 2002 Grrr... Technical Editors... Grrr... Now Playing: "So Much for the Afterglow," Everclear Now Reading: Brainbox II	Holee cannolli! (I don't care if I spelt that right or not.) I just got done keying in a buttload of frickin' edits for my manual here at the Day Job. Get this -- the manual is 120 pages. I compiled all the edits using the Comments feature in Adobe, and the EDITS are 25 pages long! What's wrong with this picture??? So I didn't get anything done today beside the edits, along with moving into my new office. Not too shabby, actually -- I'm jamming to Everclear and nobody is bothered by it. "You always try to be everything to everyone! Spin around and fall down..." Elizabeth is the best -- she stopped by work yesterday and moved almost all my stuff into the office (my former manager left last April, and I haven't gotten around to moving in 'til now, and of course they haven't replaced him!). She put my pictures on the wall and got the all-important pens and paperclips in order. And she left a message from Whit and Pumpking on the white board for me. She's too cool -- I ended up working much later than I'd planned, so she stopped by to pick me up and moved me from my cube into my new digs while I finished up my stuff. Speaking of pets, I guess I need a photo of Rudy2 one of these days. Yep, Rudy v. 2.0 has outlived his namesake by 24 hours and counting! Go Rudy, Go Rudy! I guess this one ain't too small for his size... Going to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics tonight with friends while we break in our new fondue pot. Should be... interesting, if not totally messy. I feel sort of 70s when I type the word fondue. Later... comment or e-mail me
Feb. 4, 2002 Longish day, longer night! Now Playing: "New Favorite," Alison Kraus and Union Station Now Reading: Brainbox II Today's Quote: The wall was going down by the time we drove up. Everyone pushed forward to get a piece of the wall, a crush of bodies like corpses standing up and leaning forward, but I was able to get the chunk I needed. I snatched the triangular piece of broken concrete with his spray-painted face on it. Smiling at me. But this time I smiled back, because I knew his game now.	From much later: Hello. It's just after midnight, and I just added another 2,000 words to my story "Gunning for the Buddha." This story just sort of took off tonight, becoming its own crazy entity. I blame the two extra-tall gin and tonics I made myself after Lizzie went to bed early (she was feeling sick and flu-like from a bug she must've caught from her parents). So I built a fire and messed around with some stories, and made myself an outline for this story, then started writing it, and here I am. And I'm gonna be hurting tomorrow morning as I try to get up for work... Oh well, what can you do? An artist must suffer for his art, right??? G'night. From later: Yeah, I'm still here, journalling away, though the Sff.Net servers were down for upgrades over the weekend. So I couldn't post 'til now. Were ya able to get by without your Mikey fix. Yeah, I knew you'd be okay! If I can keep my monitor from cutting off on me, I can finish this entry and go do some reading. After all my revising this weekend, I have a little more to do on my SF/F story, "Ghetto Celebration, which got rejected today. I plan on sending it out tomorrow morning, maybe after taking out the xmas-related stuff in it and making it a bit grittier -- no rest for the wicked, y'know. Oh yeah, when you have a sec, go check out Tim Pratt's fine story, Little Gods, up at Strange Horizons. Great story, Tim! Yet another fun pub for Mr. Prolific Pratt. I'm just glad I got to see an earlier version of this! I printed it out and I'm gonna compare the two (and see if he took ALL my oh-so-excellent advice!). And then I get to read his story "Behemoth" in Brainbox II, along with some other fine tales. I read the first 2, and they really got under my skin, especially Mehitobel Wilson's (literally, that one got UNDER my skin...)! I'm feeling quite good tonight, after a sluggish morning at the Day Job that turned into a hectic afternoon. All I can say about that is this: Naps at work are the best thing since bread came sliced! Later! From earlier: The novels are off! At the low, low price of $30.45, I overnighted them to my potential agent in New York City. So now I get to sit back and wait. Oh and maybe do some new writing. As soon as I get my energy back! Later. comment or e-mail me
Feb. 3, 2002 One down, one to go... Now Playing: "Vitalogy," Pearl Jam Now Reading: Brainbox II	From later: Okay, the big game's over, the commercials were a bit dull (I think my favorite ones were the Bud Light commercials, especially the one with the satin sheets and the romantic candlelights, when the guy goes sliding off the sheets and out the window in his birthday suit!). It's funny how few dot com ads there were. All I can remember are the sorta funny eTrade ads with the dancing monkey and the CEO. The game was okay, too, I guess. I just don't get into football anymore. Gimme a good ACC basketball game if I have to watch sports. And the novels are both revised and reread and ready to be printed! I feel very happy with all I've done to them. They're outta here tomorrow. Wish me luck! Later. From earlier: It's about 12:30 in the afternoon, and I just finished revising the heck out of the horror novel. Whew. I'm very pleased with it, and I know it reads much, much better. I was also able to add some nifty details here and there, like the quote on the left that gives a tiny foreshadowing of Jake's condition and really nails his physical description. I love it when my writing accomplishes two things for the price of one! I added over a thousand words to the novel, bringing it to over 105,000 words, a very good size. My other novels are on the short side (Prodigal is only 72,000 words, while Last of the Hand is a bit longer at 82k), so it's nice to pack all that "stuff" into one book. I plan on priting out both novels tomorrow and overnight it before lunch. But of course I need to reread as much of Prodigal before then... And find time to watch the Super Bowl with Lizzie, and most of all, celebrate the 7-year anniversary of the day we first met! Seven years -- how wild is that? They've been the best damn 7 years I've had in my life. We're gonna grab some gourmet Chinese food from Raleigh's best ethnic restaurant, Red Dragon, and bring it home in time for the first commercials -- I mean kickoff -- tonight. See ya! comment or e-mail me
Feb. 1, 2002 New month, new Dare, old novels to fix up... Now Playing: "Version 2.0" (how fitting!), Garbage Now Reading: The Prodigal Sons, by Michael J. Jasper Brainbox I & II	Well I'll be damned. Just when I thought I was wasting my time with my Writer's listing at Publisher's Marketplace, I get up this a.m. to find an email from a NYC agent who wants to see some of my novels. So the rest of my time, from now 'til Monday, I'll be busy fixing those novels up and getting them ready to overnight to the agent on Monday. And hey, look who's in the top 10 of this month's most visited pages at the home site of Publisher's Marketplace! It's probably from me hitting it the past day or so (and the month is only 12 hours old!), but I'll take whatever I can get these days!!! Now if I can just get a response from that other agent on The Last of the Hand... Must focus... Continue writing... The publications will come... All in good time... I really need to get all this miscellaneous stuff in my life locked down, like this website I'm helping with, all the various journal entries I've been making here (I need to limit my entries to after I get my writing done, and not do them at work!), the two classes I'm prepping to teach at some point (if I ever finish one, and if anyone shows up for the other!), getting my computers at home networked and up to full speed (I curse Gateway for not getting in touch with me about my memory card -- no more Gateway for me!), and all the various distractions I've had for the whole month of January. February, I vow, will be better! The plan is to do Camille's Dare of 1,000 words a day, as I continue work on the SF novel. My goal is to get The Wannoshay Cycle nearly half-done by March 1, up to 50,000 words. This Dare is, of course, starting after this weekend, which is devoting to polishing up my first two novels before sending them to the Big Apple. And after I fix up "The Disillusionist," which I decided to send to Realms of Fantasy. At some point this weekend I'd love to read the two Brainbox anthologies, which contain stories by fellow writing buds Tim P, Brian H, and many more. Pant, pant, pant. Too much stuff flying around in my OWN brainbox right now. Must chill out. Talk to you later!
News	comment or e-mail me