Pennywhistle podcast

My flash piece, Pennywhistle, is now up at Escape Pod for your podcasting pleasure.

Number nine

My blog is the ninth hit if you do an MSN search on gorgonzola butter.

Thank you.

Robots and Falling Hearts

The October issue of Realms of Fantasy has hit the shelves, and it includes "Robots and Falling Hearts", a collaboration with my friend and colleague Tim Pratt. I was more than a little saddened that my name was left off the table of contents, and there's also no mention of me in the biographical notes about the contributors, but my name actually did make to the story's title page, so there's that. (The editor has very graciously apologized.)

Anyway, the important thing is that it was a lot of fun writing this one with Tim, and I have to say, I'm really proud of the results, and I hope people like it.

The one that went to market

Sigh. I think I broke another toe, this time the big fat one on my right foot. We were sparring and I unleashed a devastating roundhouse kick of death with the left leg, but unfortunately I planted my right foot awkwardly, and after that I felt things moving around in that foot that I ordinarily don't feel moving around, and now the toe is all puffed up and discolored and achy and blechy.

When I was growing up I kept hearing that Evel Knievel broke every bone in his body over the course of his career. Turns out he only broke fifty.

Me am hu-man

Today's mail brought my contributors copy of Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 18. They sent me the hardcover edition, and it's very handsome and nice to hold in my hands. Thomas Canty did a particularly awesome job on the cover illustration, too. Landing a story ("Tales From the City of Seams", originally in Polyphony 4) in this anthology series has been one of my major career goals, and it's not every day I get to scratch one of those goals off the list, so this publication makes me particularly happy.

And I was quite flattered by what Kelly Link and Gavin Grant (who edit the fantasy half of the book) said about my work:

... He has published a number of stories which might vary widely in both subject and tone, yet always have a deeply humanist focus.

I like that. I've been feeling pretty disconnected from things lately, so it's nice to see my relationship to the human race confirmed.

The city with no history?

An observation about Los Angeles that rings true for me:

If you look hard enough, there’s this incredible living history that in any other (cheaper) place would’ve been knocked down and painted over years ago. There are neon signs that have obviously been there since the Beach Boys were pining over California girls. There are family-style restaurants that have been collecting a film of cooking grease on their futuristic 1950s architecture long enough for the napkin holders to join AARP. There are hotels downtown that were built at the turn of the century – rundown and sad now, sure, but still there and whispering about days gone by.

Stuck interrupted

I'm about 2800 words into a new story (a Norse dealie about Hermod), and now I'm stuck. Only I'm not calling it stuck. I'm calling it pausing to consider my narrative options. I hope by the end of the day to have all my narrative options considered, selected, and underway in terms of execution.

Okay, I was going to continue blathering on about my stuckness, but while writing the previous paragraph I got an idea for where to go next, so I'm going to do that instead. Wish me luck!

Horse question

This came up while listening to David McCullough's book about the stunningly devastating Johnstown Flood of 1889. With trains and roads to Johnstown wiped out, one intrepid reporter got to the disaster site by horse, and he had to hire fresh horses no fewer than five times during the trip.

So, how does that work? I depart Village A with horse A and arrive at Village B, where I get a fresh horse and set out for Village C. Who, then, takes horse A back to Village A? It's not like they had stable franchises back then, so it's not analagous to driving a Hertz rental from Village A to the Hertz counter at Village B. I imagine it'd be more like driving a Hertz rental to Village B and dropping it off at the Avis counter. Neither Hertz nor Avis would be okay with that. Especially not Hertz, because I guess Avis could sell the car and claim to know nothing about it.

Anyone know how this works?

My new least favorite technique

My new least favorite martial arts technique involves doing side kicks up and down the length of the mat without ever being allowed to put your leg down on the floor, which means you're just, like, hopping and flailing and sweating and getting dizzy and out of breath with your heart thudding alarmingly.

If you can get your opponent to do that for you, you won't have to bother gouging out his eyeballs because he's like to drop dead of a myocardial infarction or whatever you call it.

Cons are the mother of invention

If I'm going to World Fantasy Con, then I need to write a short story, because there're carrots and sticks and stones, and writing is the bedrock of writerly activity. Not flash this time, or even a linked suite of flash stories, but an actual 4K-7K type of thing, an actual story that's shaped like a story and people will look at it and go, "Oh, story, I see." That kind of story.

I started one about Hermod this morning. Hermod is my favorite character in Norse mythology because, though he performs a really important task, there's not much about him in the eddas, so he's ripe for authorial screwing-around-with. Also, he's essentially a failure, which is much more interesting to me than a success story. With a failure, you can write about the human struggle to overcome inner adversity. You can be all poignant and stuff. I've written quite a bit with Hermod already in novels that went nowhere.

I like the first paragraph of the story so far, which is good, because the first paragraph's all I've got.

I also think I might like to write another osteomancy story. The one I've already written should be in Asimov's early next year, and if people like it and I manage to write another one, I could maybe get some kind of momentum going or something. I dunno, I'm not much of a career-planning guy.

But, anyway, if I'm going to reward myself with another con trip, I should do something deserving of an award.

Also, you know that feeling, that buzz of having finished a story? Oh, I love that feeling.

WFC

So. World Fantasy Con in Madison. I'm thinking about going. Anyone need a roomie? Gov's Club preferably (cuz, you know, free drinks), but not necessarily. If yes, email or post a comment?

My new favorite technique

So, if the attacker comes at you with an overhead punch, you do an upward block. Then you move your arm in a circular motion and kind of flick his arm away, and your arm completes the circle, raking the guy's face with a tiger claw. Then you drop him with a roundhouse kick.

That's the gentle part.

Now he's on the ground, so you jump in the air over his head and land with a foot on either side of his nose. This tears most of the skin off his face.

If you're a pacifist, you just punch him three times in the face. If not, you gouge out his eyes and flick them away.

And now all you have to do is stomp on whatever's left of his head.

There's no way I could pull that off in real life, but this technique is one of the reasons a Wednesday night martial arts class can be so fun.

Once you're done with the push-ups, anyway.

Grover, butter, guitar

Destiny's Child is on Sesame Street. Beyoncé does have that certain something, but she sure ain't no Grover.

Uh, moving on.

I don't cook nearly often enough, which is dumb of me, because I invariably have fun doing it and am generally pleased with the results. The other night I made grilled sirloin tip, simply seasoned with salt and pepper and then finished with gorgonzola butter. Even I couldn't screw that up. We ate it and liked it. Maybe tonight I'll skip the steak and have gorgonzola butter with a spoon. Maybe I'll skip the spoon.

My hair is doing a Flock of Seagulls thing this morning, which is kind of weird, considering it's maybe an inch long. It's a special talent I have.

I'm selling my electric guitar, an Epiphone Sheraton semi-hollow body in a lovely dark sunburst finish with gold (well, not real gold) hardware. She's absolutely gorgeous and in new, mint condition. Oh, she looks exactly like this. Sweet, yeah? She just sits there in her case like a princess in a coffin, and it's not right, I tell you. She deserves so much more. I'll put her (and her coffin) on Ebay, but I thought I'd post notice here first in case someone I know is interested. Email me if you are.

I'm hungry. I want a waffle.

Make something

Last year, in his Harvey Awards keynote speech, Neil Gaiman said:

As a solution to various problems you may encounter upon the way, let me suggest this: Make Good Art.

It's very simple. But it seems to work. Life fallen apart? Make good art. True love ran off with the milkman? Make good art. Bank foreclosing? Make good art.

That sounds entirely sensible and wise, but it's advice I have a hard time applying. I'm generally more productive and produce better work when I'm happy than when I'm not. Which might just be a function of having spent more time in my life being happy than otherwise, so I have more experience working in a state of happy. But life can't always be uninterrupted dancing in the dandelions, and given that, it behooves one to learn how to remain productive when it's less dandelions and more poison oak.

And, of course, the buzz of productivity itself can be a crucial element to one's happiness. Happiness, for me, requires more than writing and finishing stories, but to an extent, if I take care of my art, my art will take care of me, filling me with a sense of pleasure and satisfaction that carries over into other parts of my life.

I do recall, however, that back before I'd published anything, my creativity was fueled by a sense of being pissed off. Not pissed off at any particular person or institution, but rather at my condition of being an unpublished writer wishing desperately to be a published writer and running into the struggles and frustrations we all face. In short, I took a negative and made something out of it. In defiance, I made art.

There's probably a lesson there. When the Happy is hard to find, defy something. Doesn't matter what. Defy the absence of Big Happy. Make some art. Make it good if you can, but if not, then make some art anyway.

Glasgow, Borrible, Tinker

Yes, I do wish I were at the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, because indications from the blogosphere are that it's a lot of fun being at the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow. They're handing out the Hugo Awards tonight, and several friends and colleagues of mine are on the ballot, and it'd be a lot of fun to hoot and holler for them. I'm going to send David a particular shout of good luck in his bid for John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, because I've known him longest, since back before he'd published anything, and when we met at the Viable Paradise Writers' Workshop back in 1999, I knew it wouldn't be too long before publications and award nominations would start coming his way.

***
I'm reading The Borribles, the first volume in Michael de Larrabeiti's YA urban fantasy trilogy, written in the 1970's. Borribles are some version of pointy-eared little people living largely unnoticed in streets of London, and they're violent and vicious as hell. If there's a twee page in the entire book, I managed to miss it. Their enemies are rat-like creatures called Rumbles, and they're the enemies of the Borribles because, well, they're the enemy, and that justifies whatever violence the Borribles care to inflict upon them, which is considerable. The story is kind of like a Celtic cattle raid tale, in which enemies are enemies because they're Other, and adventures are embarked upon to win fame, and it's pretty much that simple. Interesting stuff.

***
After another quick round of revisions, I sent my Kung Fu YA off to another agent who'd requested the complete manuscript. Though I'm certainly not opposed to revisiting the manuscript an unlimited number of times -- I'm something of a tinkerer at heart, when it comes to writing -- I hope I can set it aside for a time and move on to other things. I'm starting to feel unproductive, which is among my least favorite feelings to feel.

I might need to find a coffee joint without free wireless.

Year's Best Fantasy & Horror

Word on the street is that Year's Best Fantasy & Horror 18 (edited by Datlow, Grant & Link) has started showing up on bookstore shelves. It includes my story suite "Tales From the City of Seams" (originally in Polyphony 4), and I feel everyone should purchase cartons and cartons at once.

First story sale meme

A baton pass from Doug Lain, via Jason.

First Story Sale Meme:
Describe the first story you ever sold to any publication. What was the title of the story? The name of the publication? The plot? The public reception to your work?

---

I would like the world to think my first story sale was "Wolves Till the World Goes Down" to Starlight 3, because I still like that story and it sold to a really good market, but my actual first sale was a story titled "Down and Dirty With a Demon Muse" and it appeared in a zine largely devoted to the philosophy of Ayn Rand called The Radical Romantic. (I, myself, am not devoted to the philosophy of Ayn Rand.)

The story (originally titled "Visit With a Fan") was about an extreme artist whose idea of art is, like, a dead dog in a block of lucite. It was very edgy. Because in my teens and early 20's, I was all Mister Extreme Splatterpunky Writer Guy. I even used to wear a black trench coat.

Anyway, the story was accepted by a splatterpunky magazine called Iniquities, which was actually considered a good horror market at the time, featuring guys like Clive Barker and Peter Straub. It wasn't so shabby. But they folded, as all magazines that accepted my stories were wont to do, and then the story got picked up by another horror magazine, Phantasm, and then they folded, and then the editor/publisher of The Radical Romantic (a gentleman named Dave whom I worked with at Waldenbooks & More Books in West LA) threw me a bone and bought the story for ten bucks. Which thrilled me. Because unlike every other editor who'd ever accepted a story of mine, he actually followed up with, you know, publishing the story and paying me. He was professional about it. For reasons I forget, we changed the title to "Down & Dirty With a Demon Muse", which I'm kind of happy about, because it lends a greater tone of absurdity to the anecdote.

Cheeky lad that I was, I sent a copy of it to Ellen Datlow, and it got me an Honorable Mention in Year's Best Fantasy & Horror. I think I caught her in a charitable mood.

Dead dogs in lucite. Jeez.

Well, we all start somewhere, I guess.