October News, part 2, 2001

michaeljasper.net

"Another Wrecked Web Site"

Oct 14, 2001

Narrowing it all down...

Now Playing:

"London Underground," John Digweed

Now Reading:

Perdido Street Station, China Mieville

The Bad People, Jeff Rutherford

Just a quick entry to know I'm still hanging in here after a somewhat crappy week last week. All my rejections are coming back to haunt me!!! I think I got 5-6 of the little buggers last week. It gets to ya after a while, especially when you pin some hopes on them. Let that be a lesson there, kiddies. Send stuff out and forget about it as soon as possible. And get back to readin' and writin'.

I've finally gotten my act together about what I want to work on next. I'm down to 2 things now -- the mainstream novel revision and the outline for the anti-fantasy novel/story I'm noodling over along with some fellow writers. I'm contacting two more agents, with recommendations from former professors (yep -- they both followed up on my emails on Friday -- thanks, guys!). And I'm sending 2 more stories out.

I also have started reading a novel from a writing buddy of mine, and I'm about 60 pages into it. It's quite good, and I'm enjoying it. I should be able to finish it up by month's end. Everything needs to be tied up by then, you know, so I can focus on the novel-in-a-month, or NaNoWriMo, which is a little over 2 weeks away. I'm either going to do the anti-fantasy novel or do the 6X story about the large fella in Eastern NC.

In either case, whatever I decide to work on, I plan on having FUN with it. I've gotten way too serious about my writing in the past few weeks, simply because I've been so crazy busy with finishing my novel and getting slammed at work off and on. I usually try to keep an even keel, but I've been unbalanced lately. I need to slow down, do one project at a time, and remember to enjoy life.

With Elizabeth in school and bombarded with papers and tests herself, it gets hard for the both of us to slow down and just "be." We finally figured all this out today. We were wondering why we were both feeling like crap. So we're getting better and taking time to do the little things, like eating supper at the kitchen table instead of in front of the nightly news (which of course didn't help our attitudes either -- the news that is).

In the spirit of Tim's journal, here's a quick rundown of our meal tonight (Tim always gives cool details about what he and his girlfriend cook or where they go to eat). I cooked up a wicked pasta dish tonight while Elizabeth did research for a paper -- sauteed onions, green peppers, mushrooms, fresh garlic, and zucchini mixed along with some spaghetti sauce and a full airplane bottle of Merlot (okay, almost full -- I had a couple swigs!). Some fresh salad with chopped carrots, onions, green peppers, sprouts, and a slice of cheese-and-mushroom garlic bread on the side. Lovely. I'm stuffed, and I'm outta here! Later.
mjj

Oct 12, 2001

Bummer...

Now Playing:

More Midnight Oil

Got the rejection yesterday. Not just any run-of-the-mill rejection -- I can handle those, all 500+ of them -- but the rejection from DAW Books for The Last of the Hand. One good thing about it is that I didn't have to wait long.

Ouch. Oh well. I still have the query out to one more publisher, and about 5 agents. I was hoping to send it to another agent or two with a recommendation from a former teacher. I think I'll let the manuscript sit until 2002, then get it out again. I need a break from all that hocus-pocus!

Basically, from now until the end of the year, I want to work on the mainstream novel, send that one out to some agents as well, and write another novel in the NaNoWriMo.

But first I think I'm going to play some more. The whole discussion we've been having about High Fantasy has been fascinating, and I want to read some more Perdido Street Station and keep jotting down story ideas as I go. Right now my current idea is for ten wacked-out characters to meet, just like the traditional band of adventurers, except this group is full of the standard fantasy, horror, and sf characters.

The trick is that each character is an anti-stereotype. For example, the dwarf is a woman who's quite feminine and open-minded (instead of grumpy and stodgy), and the vampire isn't like Lestat but more like Pig Pen from Charlie Brown (what would you expect from a bloodsucker?), and the alien is... well, I haven't figured that one out yet. They're all going to be a pretty unsavory bunch, actually, kicked out of the capital city/kingdom by the new king who's doing a sort of Giuliani-style "clean-up" of his new territory. And then... well, I don't want to give it ALL away. More to come later, if I get time to write this weekend (we've got some yardwork to do first. Sigh.).

So, the key is to not let rejection slow me down. At least somebody got a chance to read my fantasy novel. I'll keep trying. With the novel and my other stories. And my other novels. And all the stories and novels I have yet to write. Later.
mjj

Oct 11, 2001

Weird stuff...

Today's Quote:

"I don't wanna run and hide
I've seen it all from either side
Truth and fiction must collide someday!"

- Midnight Oil

Now Reading:

Brittle Innings, Michael Bishop

Now Playing:

"20,000 Watts RSI," Midnight Oil

I wasn't going to write in here until I'd actually written something worth reporting, but it's my lunch break and I wanted to do something productive. So here I am.

I've been mulling over some ideas for writing in my head. As of Monday, I was bound and determined to have my first novel all fixed up by the end of the month, setting me up nicely for the novel-in-a-month I'm planning for November. But when I sat down to do some revising, I couldn't really get into it. Maybe it's been too long since I worked on it. Or maybe I'm just done with it, emotionally.

Or maybe I just want to work on new stuff instead. I've been very scattered lately. The only real constant has been my reading material -- I'm almost done with Brittle Innings, which has probably been the most enjoyable book I've read so far this year. It holds together much better than American Gods, and while it is a bit too long (500 pages), it's not boring.

I may put my story ideas (tho not my novel chapters for the first novel) on hold for a little bit in favor of a new challenge, issued by fellow WotFer (but from an earlier year) Gregory Janks.

Greg has been doing a lot of thinking about High Fantasy -- the fiction of Tolkien in particular. The Lord of the Rings. He's got me thinking about it too, how there hasn't really been a new form of High Fantasy (elves, goblins, magic rings, swords, sorcery, maps at the front and family trees in the back sort of books) in over 20 years, if not longer. We're all laboring under the (well-deserved) shadow of Middle-Earth.

The only book to come close to shaking things up has been Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. This book turns a lot of the standard, traditional aspects of fantasy on its ear by mixing in liberal doses of horror and fantasy along with its fantasy -- it even has a map at the beginning! You gotta have a map! I'm halfway through the book myself, and have found it both densely detailed (almost too much so at times) and fascinating in its uniqueness and style. I plan on finishing that, maybe even starting over at page one, as soon as I finish the Bishop book.

What's got me even more pumped up is the challenge that Greg has put to us: Write a fantasy tale that doesn't steal or even resemble Lord of the Rings, something dangerous, something so different it probably isn't even marketable. Something that creates its own genre (as Mieville did for his book, calling it "Weird Fiction").

So I've been thinking about that, a lot. How cool it would be to write a story (or novel, or trilogy, or whatever) that breaks the rules of High Fantasy and uses elements of Horror and SF and is something altogether New. I'm not sure what I want to do yet, but I do know that I want to assemble some sort of group, that one of the people in the group will be a kind of elf, another will be some kind of vampire, and so on. I want to use all those elements from different genres that all the submission requirements of all the magazines out there tell us not to use: no elves, no vampires, no swords and sorcery, no violence, etc. etc.

And you know what? By the time all of us (there's about 4 writers interested in trying this challenge so far, and we're open to other writers joining in) are done, I'll bet all our stories will sell to one market or another. Because I think readers are ready for something new. I am.

Now I just need to focus myself and get some real writing done! Later.
mjj

Oct 9, 2001

Switching gears, sort of but not really...

Now Playing:

"Some Other Sucker's Parade," Del Amitri

Okay, so now I have this bug to get back to revising my first novel, The Prodigal Sons. For some reason, I'm much more interested in writing novels lately. Perhaps because they're more lucrative? Well, I'd like to think I'm not as greedy as that (though I'd love love love to quit my Day Job!). I think I like the challenge in writing a novel, and sticking with characters for longer than a month or so, like I do with short stories. I want to develop and learn more, with my characters and plots and ideas.

Plus I love telling people "I just finished my third novel."

I actually have four more novel ideas planned out, so I figure I'll stay in novel-writing condition and get all my earlier novels up to snuff before the end of the year. I think the horror novel is really close to being publishable, and I'll probably have to do another pass at the fantasy novel, which leaves me with my "mainstream" novel about the two brothers.

I have the folks at NC State to blame for this change in plans -- I pulled out a chapter of Prodigal Sons to read yesterday at their fundraiser, and I found myself really getting into it. I have an excerpt from the story/chapter if you're interested.

I had a professional editor take a look at it a year ago, and I'm ready to do what it takes to get the characters better developed so the plot makes more sense (some of the character motivations were a bit off). I can handle that. It'll take some time, but if I do a little bit each day (like, an hour a day, maybe??!!), I should have the entire manuscript in shape by the end of the month, just in time to start the new novel on Nov. 1.

This week's plan is to fix up the first 3 chapters along with the synopsis and cover letter so they're all ready to go out to an agent. I'm hoping I can get some agents' names from one of my former professors who I saw yesterday. That seemed to be key to Pam, the woman whose first novel was just published. It's all about networking... And I'm not a fan of networking. I just like talking to other writers and hearing how their work is going.

So all in all, yesterday was well worth it. I got to see lots of old friends and teachers, got to meet some new folks, and was given some new impetus for my first novel (the former head of the English department said it was "Very good" after I read -- all the motivation I need, right there -- just give me a tiny compliment and I'm set!). A pretty good Monday. Later.
mjj

Oct 8, 2001

Don't quit the Day Job (yet)...

Today's Quote:

You didn't have to ask permission even if you were using power tools.

Now Playing:

"This Can't Be Life," Wild Colonials (yes, it's that kind of day!); "All That You Can't Leave Behind," U2 (later)

From later...

Just a quick follow-up. The reading today went really well, even if it was VERY sparsely attended. I got there around 4 and read chapter 6 of The Prodigal Sons, and to be honest, I thought my reading kicked ass, even if there were very few folks around to hear it! It's gotten me excited about the novel again, and I may just put off my short story ideas for a month or so and just finish revising that sucker. Might as well get all my novels out the door this year, eh? I want to flesh it out a bit more, get it closer to 90k (as of right now, with today's additions, it's only 70,200 words), and do more with my characters.

So yeah, even if not many people were there, I feel good about it, and I'm glad I joined everyone for dinner. I talked to some other grads of the program and got to meet Lee Smith, so that was nice. Then I got to see some former professors (all of whom remembered me, 4 years later! Hi Dr. Morillo!) and chatted with them, one of whom even encouraged me to give her a call so she could recommend me to some agents! Very cool. And Pam's reading was fun, and I broke down and bought her book so she could sign it. Lots of fun.

And now I'm DONE networking! Time to get back to WORK! See ya.

From earlier...

Monday mornings... not a good idea.

I'm ready for the weekend already. Elizabeth and I have been going like crazy since the first of August, when we went to the beach for vacation. I'm ready for another week off! We always seem to plan too many activities for the weekends, when lately, with the weeks so busy for us both, we should've been keeping them free.

But what can you do? I didn't get much done yesterday except put together a couple submissions of older stories and read about 30 pages in the Bishop novel. I kept meaning to work on a story, but time just slipped away from me.

And today's another off day, because I'm off to a reading tonight -- I get to read a chunk from The Prodigal Sons, my first novel, to some folks at N.C. State. Hopefully it'll go better than my reading on Saturday! I may bail out of the reading later tonight at 7:30, depending on how dinner goes with the other writers and professors. If I go to the reading, I'll feel tempted to buy Pam's book, and I've got so many books now it's not even funny (at least I controlled myself this weekend and came out of the con with only Drew's book, nothing more).

I'll probably update this more later. Not much to report on the writing front so far. I think I'll be changing my schedule around so I'm writing at night more -- we got a membership at the local YMCA, and I need to start working out in the mornings. Elizabeth has already gone once already, on the first day the place was open. She got up at 5:30 to go do aerobics! It'll be nice once the pool is open and I can swim laps some mornings and do weights on other mornings. And maybe try playing some pickup basketball, if I'm feeling brave. So we'll see how the writing goes once I find my new rhythm. I've got some time before November's writing marathon begins. Later.

News

mjj

	michaeljasper.net *"Another Wrecked Web Site"*
Oct 14, 2001 Narrowing it all down... Now Playing: "London Underground," John Digweed Now Reading: Perdido Street Station, China Mieville The Bad People, Jeff Rutherford	Just a quick entry to know I'm still hanging in here after a somewhat crappy week last week. All my rejections are coming back to haunt me!!! I think I got 5-6 of the little buggers last week. It gets to ya after a while, especially when you pin some hopes on them. Let that be a lesson there, kiddies. Send stuff out and forget about it as soon as possible. And get back to readin' and writin'. I've finally gotten my act together about what I want to work on next. I'm down to 2 things now -- the mainstream novel revision and the outline for the anti-fantasy novel/story I'm noodling over along with some fellow writers. I'm contacting two more agents, with recommendations from former professors (yep -- they both followed up on my emails on Friday -- thanks, guys!). And I'm sending 2 more stories out. I also have started reading a novel from a writing buddy of mine, and I'm about 60 pages into it. It's quite good, and I'm enjoying it. I should be able to finish it up by month's end. Everything needs to be tied up by then, you know, so I can focus on the novel-in-a-month, or NaNoWriMo, which is a little over 2 weeks away. I'm either going to do the anti-fantasy novel or do the 6X story about the large fella in Eastern NC. In either case, whatever I decide to work on, I plan on having FUN with it. I've gotten way too serious about my writing in the past few weeks, simply because I've been so crazy busy with finishing my novel and getting slammed at work off and on. I usually try to keep an even keel, but I've been unbalanced lately. I need to slow down, do one project at a time, and remember to enjoy life. With Elizabeth in school and bombarded with papers and tests herself, it gets hard for the both of us to slow down and just "be." We finally figured all this out today. We were wondering why we were both feeling like crap. So we're getting better and taking time to do the little things, like eating supper at the kitchen table instead of in front of the nightly news (which of course didn't help our attitudes either -- the news that is). In the spirit of Tim's journal, here's a quick rundown of our meal tonight (Tim always gives cool details about what he and his girlfriend cook or where they go to eat). I cooked up a wicked pasta dish tonight while Elizabeth did research for a paper -- sauteed onions, green peppers, mushrooms, fresh garlic, and zucchini mixed along with some spaghetti sauce and a full airplane bottle of Merlot (okay, almost full -- I had a couple swigs!). Some fresh salad with chopped carrots, onions, green peppers, sprouts, and a slice of cheese-and-mushroom garlic bread on the side. Lovely. I'm stuffed, and I'm outta here! Later. mjj
Oct 12, 2001 Bummer... Now Playing: More Midnight Oil	Got the rejection yesterday. Not just any run-of-the-mill rejection -- I can handle those, all 500+ of them -- but the rejection from DAW Books for The Last of the Hand. One good thing about it is that I didn't have to wait long. Ouch. Oh well. I still have the query out to one more publisher, and about 5 agents. I was hoping to send it to another agent or two with a recommendation from a former teacher. I think I'll let the manuscript sit until 2002, then get it out again. I need a break from all that hocus-pocus! Basically, from now until the end of the year, I want to work on the mainstream novel, send that one out to some agents as well, and write another novel in the NaNoWriMo. But first I think I'm going to play some more. The whole discussion we've been having about High Fantasy has been fascinating, and I want to read some more Perdido Street Station and keep jotting down story ideas as I go. Right now my current idea is for ten wacked-out characters to meet, just like the traditional band of adventurers, except this group is full of the standard fantasy, horror, and sf characters. The trick is that each character is an anti-stereotype. For example, the dwarf is a woman who's quite feminine and open-minded (instead of grumpy and stodgy), and the vampire isn't like Lestat but more like Pig Pen from Charlie Brown (what would you expect from a bloodsucker?), and the alien is... well, I haven't figured that one out yet. They're all going to be a pretty unsavory bunch, actually, kicked out of the capital city/kingdom by the new king who's doing a sort of Giuliani-style "clean-up" of his new territory. And then... well, I don't want to give it ALL away. More to come later, if I get time to write this weekend (we've got some yardwork to do first. Sigh.). So, the key is to not let rejection slow me down. At least somebody got a chance to read my fantasy novel. I'll keep trying. With the novel and my other stories. And my other novels. And all the stories and novels I have yet to write. Later. mjj
Oct 11, 2001 Weird stuff... Today's Quote: "I don't wanna run and hide I've seen it all from either side Truth and fiction must collide someday!" - Midnight Oil Now Reading: Brittle Innings, Michael Bishop Now Playing: "20,000 Watts RSI," Midnight Oil	I wasn't going to write in here until I'd actually written something worth reporting, but it's my lunch break and I wanted to do something productive. So here I am. I've been mulling over some ideas for writing in my head. As of Monday, I was bound and determined to have my first novel all fixed up by the end of the month, setting me up nicely for the novel-in-a-month I'm planning for November. But when I sat down to do some revising, I couldn't really get into it. Maybe it's been too long since I worked on it. Or maybe I'm just done with it, emotionally. Or maybe I just want to work on new stuff instead. I've been very scattered lately. The only real constant has been my reading material -- I'm almost done with Brittle Innings, which has probably been the most enjoyable book I've read so far this year. It holds together much better than American Gods, and while it is a bit too long (500 pages), it's not boring. I may put my story ideas (tho not my novel chapters for the first novel) on hold for a little bit in favor of a new challenge, issued by fellow WotFer (but from an earlier year) Gregory Janks. Greg has been doing a lot of thinking about High Fantasy -- the fiction of Tolkien in particular. The Lord of the Rings. He's got me thinking about it too, how there hasn't really been a new form of High Fantasy (elves, goblins, magic rings, swords, sorcery, maps at the front and family trees in the back sort of books) in over 20 years, if not longer. We're all laboring under the (well-deserved) shadow of Middle-Earth. The only book to come close to shaking things up has been Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. This book turns a lot of the standard, traditional aspects of fantasy on its ear by mixing in liberal doses of horror and fantasy along with its fantasy -- it even has a map at the beginning! You gotta have a map! I'm halfway through the book myself, and have found it both densely detailed (almost too much so at times) and fascinating in its uniqueness and style. I plan on finishing that, maybe even starting over at page one, as soon as I finish the Bishop book. What's got me even more pumped up is the challenge that Greg has put to us: Write a fantasy tale that doesn't steal or even resemble Lord of the Rings, something dangerous, something so different it probably isn't even marketable. Something that creates its own genre (as Mieville did for his book, calling it "Weird Fiction"). So I've been thinking about that, a lot. How cool it would be to write a story (or novel, or trilogy, or whatever) that breaks the rules of High Fantasy and uses elements of Horror and SF and is something altogether New. I'm not sure what I want to do yet, but I do know that I want to assemble some sort of group, that one of the people in the group will be a kind of elf, another will be some kind of vampire, and so on. I want to use all those elements from different genres that all the submission requirements of all the magazines out there tell us not to use: no elves, no vampires, no swords and sorcery, no violence, etc. etc. And you know what? By the time all of us (there's about 4 writers interested in trying this challenge so far, and we're open to other writers joining in) are done, I'll bet all our stories will sell to one market or another. Because I think readers are ready for something new. I am. Now I just need to focus myself and get some real writing done! Later. mjj
Oct 9, 2001 Switching gears, sort of but not really... Now Playing: "Some Other Sucker's Parade," Del Amitri	Okay, so now I have this bug to get back to revising my first novel, The Prodigal Sons. For some reason, I'm much more interested in writing novels lately. Perhaps because they're more lucrative? Well, I'd like to think I'm not as greedy as that (though I'd love love love to quit my Day Job!). I think I like the challenge in writing a novel, and sticking with characters for longer than a month or so, like I do with short stories. I want to develop and learn more, with my characters and plots and ideas. Plus I love telling people "I just finished my third novel." I actually have four more novel ideas planned out, so I figure I'll stay in novel-writing condition and get all my earlier novels up to snuff before the end of the year. I think the horror novel is really close to being publishable, and I'll probably have to do another pass at the fantasy novel, which leaves me with my "mainstream" novel about the two brothers. I have the folks at NC State to blame for this change in plans -- I pulled out a chapter of Prodigal Sons to read yesterday at their fundraiser, and I found myself really getting into it. I have an excerpt from the story/chapter if you're interested. I had a professional editor take a look at it a year ago, and I'm ready to do what it takes to get the characters better developed so the plot makes more sense (some of the character motivations were a bit off). I can handle that. It'll take some time, but if I do a little bit each day (like, an hour a day, maybe??!!), I should have the entire manuscript in shape by the end of the month, just in time to start the new novel on Nov. 1. This week's plan is to fix up the first 3 chapters along with the synopsis and cover letter so they're all ready to go out to an agent. I'm hoping I can get some agents' names from one of my former professors who I saw yesterday. That seemed to be key to Pam, the woman whose first novel was just published. It's all about networking... And I'm not a fan of networking. I just like talking to other writers and hearing how their work is going. So all in all, yesterday was well worth it. I got to see lots of old friends and teachers, got to meet some new folks, and was given some new impetus for my first novel (the former head of the English department said it was "Very good" after I read -- all the motivation I need, right there -- just give me a tiny compliment and I'm set!). A pretty good Monday. Later. mjj
Oct 8, 2001 Don't quit the Day Job (yet)... Today's Quote: You didn't have to ask permission even if you were using power tools. Now Playing: "This Can't Be Life," Wild Colonials (yes, it's that kind of day!); "All That You Can't Leave Behind," U2 (later)	From later... Just a quick follow-up. The reading today went really well, even if it was VERY sparsely attended. I got there around 4 and read chapter 6 of The Prodigal Sons, and to be honest, I thought my reading kicked ass, even if there were very few folks around to hear it! It's gotten me excited about the novel again, and I may just put off my short story ideas for a month or so and just finish revising that sucker. Might as well get all my novels out the door this year, eh? I want to flesh it out a bit more, get it closer to 90k (as of right now, with today's additions, it's only 70,200 words), and do more with my characters. So yeah, even if not many people were there, I feel good about it, and I'm glad I joined everyone for dinner. I talked to some other grads of the program and got to meet Lee Smith, so that was nice. Then I got to see some former professors (all of whom remembered me, 4 years later! Hi Dr. Morillo!) and chatted with them, one of whom even encouraged me to give her a call so she could recommend me to some agents! Very cool. And Pam's reading was fun, and I broke down and bought her book so she could sign it. Lots of fun. And now I'm DONE networking! Time to get back to WORK! See ya. From earlier... Monday mornings... not a good idea. I'm ready for the weekend already. Elizabeth and I have been going like crazy since the first of August, when we went to the beach for vacation. I'm ready for another week off! We always seem to plan too many activities for the weekends, when lately, with the weeks so busy for us both, we should've been keeping them free. But what can you do? I didn't get much done yesterday except put together a couple submissions of older stories and read about 30 pages in the Bishop novel. I kept meaning to work on a story, but time just slipped away from me. And today's another off day, because I'm off to a reading tonight -- I get to read a chunk from The Prodigal Sons, my first novel, to some folks at N.C. State. Hopefully it'll go better than my reading on Saturday! I may bail out of the reading later tonight at 7:30, depending on how dinner goes with the other writers and professors. If I go to the reading, I'll feel tempted to buy Pam's book, and I've got so many books now it's not even funny (at least I controlled myself this weekend and came out of the con with only Drew's book, nothing more). I'll probably update this more later. Not much to report on the writing front so far. I think I'll be changing my schedule around so I'm writing at night more -- we got a membership at the local YMCA, and I need to start working out in the mornings. Elizabeth has already gone once already, on the first day the place was open. She got up at 5:30 to go do aerobics! It'll be nice once the pool is open and I can swim laps some mornings and do weights on other mornings. And maybe try playing some pickup basketball, if I'm feeling brave. So we'll see how the writing goes once I find my new rhythm. I've got some time before November's writing marathon begins. Later.
News	mjj