Sped

So, I took a little road trip for the purposes of driving and taking pictures and thinking and writing, and I managed all those things, so I'd term the endeavor a success.

I started off by speeding through the dull northwestern quadrant of Arizona, through Wickenberg and Wikieup and Kingman, crossed over Hoover Dam, and made it about fifty yards into Nevada before committing sin, for at the Hacienda Casino I gambled a quarter and won $1.25, a large gain considering my only purpose for delving into the polluted environs of smoke and Bud Lite and klang and gong was to use the bathroom. Having scratched any itch to match wits with the house, I continued on, blowing past Las Vegas, listening to Christopher Tolkien read Of Beren and Luthien.

After nightfall I pulled off into Parowan, Utah, there to settle for the night. Unfortunately, there's not much dining in Parowan, Utah, so I had to backtrack about 20 miles to Cedar City, where I had pumpkin pancakes at the IHOP. Almost hit a deer on the way back, which would have been kind of mortifying, since her mate was watching from the side of the road.

The next morning I brushed the night's accumulation of snow off my car and had oatmeal and toast at the Parowan Cafe (I probably could have gotten dinner there quite happily, but I assume the motel desk clerk had his reasons for not revealing its existence to me the previous evening). I consulted a cafe patron, a ruggedly handsome cowboy with a hat and a moustache and everything, and after discussing my route selection with him, I decided to visit Zion National Park instead of Salt Lake City. Zion, of course, was gorgeous, and I drove curvy roads and tromped around a bit and took a lot of photos (posted here).

Then, more driving as Christopher Tolkien read Of the Darkening of Valinor and Of the Fall of the Noldor.

I came across some Indian dwellings, apparently constructed by dropping enormous boulders onto stone block enclosures. I'm certain the original denizens of the area could have devised a way to move such big boulders, but I'm not sure why they'd have bothered. And in any case, the steel hooks screwed into the rocks, perfect to faciliate cranes, struck me as a bit suspect. But I ain't no anthropologist, I grant you.

Then, more driving.

I ended up in Flagstaff, home of the Beaver Street Brewpub (I favor the Railhead Red), and Macey's Cafe (I favor the continental long drip, especially welcome after too much truck stop and trading post coffee), and I managed some writing in both places.

Then, this morning, I went out for a hike, and for 2.5 hours I had the entire trail to myself, except for some squirrels and a couple of mule deer. Wind humming through the pines, sound of birds, only my own footfalls and huffing and puffing to disturb the peace. Nice.

A short trip, but good. The roads often look forboding, and they sometimes are, but they provide plenty of wonders and gaffs to amaze and amuse, and sometimes motion is its own reward.

It's Tim's first novel!

It's The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, Tim Pratt's first novel, and you can buy it RIGHT NOW at all the usual places books are sold. I've got my copy. Get yours!

Want to know more before you spend? Okay, here you'll find a description of the book, links to places you can buy it, reviews, and an excerpt.

Tim's a great guy and a brilliant writer, and it's his first novel! Get in on the ground floor and years from now you can claim to have discovered him!

Seriously. Seeing one's first novel released is a fabulous day in the life of a writer (from what people tell me), so major congrats and atta-boys to Tim.

Buncha pictures

Photos from my epic road trip:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gregvan

Quick wave from the road

Morning in Parowan, Utah. Brrr.

Temperature gradients

Clear, cold day out there. Which I know, because I had to run out to the QT for milk, which necessitated moving from the warm in-here to the cold out-there. I even wore a hat to trap some of the heat leaking from my brain. After I got back, my awareness of the cold was re-enforced when I jumped in the shower and realized the hot water heater wasn't up to the hot water needs of the household. For most of the year, we don't actually need a water heater. Hot water just comes out of the pipes naturally. In fact, some kind of cold water cooler would be useful. But for a short while, living here will be a little more like living on planet Earth.

The reason I'm so focused on the cold is because I've been monitoring the weather along my upcoming road trip route, and right now there are snow and foul weather advisories for the parts of Utah I'm traveling through. Depending on how things develop, I might have to alter my route. Not to Las Vegas, I don't think. Maybe hole up in Flagstaff? Maybe Santa Fe? Maybe, I dunno, somewhere in Colorado? Maybe just head north as planned and figure it out as I go along? Probably that.

Had a nice Thanksgiving, although the time with far-away friends and family was even briefer than normal. I am, possibly, even more thankful than usual for the generosity of my friends and loved ones. They help me unjam my weapons, toss me ammo clips when I'm empty, and provide cover while I'm shooting my way out. Or, if you prefer non-violent compariphors, they're just really warm and good and kind to me, and I'm very grateful.

Fueling up

Writing's gone better today, about 1200 words on a new story. It's a sequel to "The Osteomancer's Son", and wouldn't it be cool if the market who bought that one would buy the sequel as well? And then I could write, like, another 80,000 words worth of sequels and have me a fix-up novel, yeah.

Well, probably I won't go that route, but another couple of stories set in an osteomantic Los Angeles would be fun to write, in addition to the other stuff I want to write, like the thing with the valkyrie and the other thing about the guy who does that thing, and then, of course, the thing about the other guy who does that other thing.

Spent part of the morning planning for a little solo road trip next week (after a mad-dash tag home for the holiday), the goal of which is to travel to places I've never been and see things I've never seen (and maybe snap some pics of them, as it's been a long time since I've played with my camera, and I do enjoy playing with my camera) and drink beer in brew pubs where I've never drunk beer and sip coffee and write in places where I've never sipped coffee or written. I've got a route planned, I've got lodgings squared away, and now I need to accumulate audiobooks to keep me company. I prefer narrative to music for segments of long road trips, as the voices of others talking tends to drown out the voices in my head. No matter what, I'm guaranteed some pretty country (because as long as you don't head west down 1-10 from here, you're guaranteed some pretty country before you get too far).

Should be fun. Unless I run into Interstate Highway Nazgul. It can happen.

Take two

I was feeling a bit down on myself for writing a chapter of the thing-I-been-typing-on that really displeased me. It didn't do what I wanted it to do, the characters became uninteresting and unlikeable, the action was cartoonish, the plot advanced itself only by characters filling up paragraphs with expository dialogue telling the reader how the plot was advancing itself ... it sucked. So, I relegated the chapter to a new Word file where it wouldn't corrupt the rest of the document with its stinky milk odor. And I was feeling down about this, because it zeroed out any net word-count gains I'd made, and it was a waste of time, and my time is not unlimited, and futility is a cold, wet sweater.

Or, I could have just gone with the bad chapter, even though it's a very early chapter in the piece, and it's the first appearance of a couple of major characters, and it sets up some major themes and movements upon which the rest of the thing-I-been-typing-on will depend. There's a lot to be said for just plunging on ahead, just getting things down on the page, fixing it in later drafts.

Then I was listening to a podcast interview with George R.R. Martin in which he said the reason he delivered Feast For Crows three years late is because he spent some time following the wrong narrative path and had to throw out an entire year of work.

I can't imagine. I just can't imagine what that must feel like, staring at a blinking cursor at the top of a new document file, knowing that for the past twelve or so months, nothing you did matters, that you have to do it all over again, that you just wasted ... oh, even for a best-selling author like Martin, who had to know deep in his heart that he'd eventually get the book written, that readers would snap it up off the bookshelves, that he'd probably make the bestseller lists again and that he'd write more books and would still have a career, that he'd still be a writer ... it still must have really, really sucked.

So, I can swallow a chapter. It's not that big a deal. The thing is, I have to trust myself. Writing doesn't have to be like running down a steep hill, a proposition in which if you stop, you fall, and if you fall, you break your neck. Sometimes, writing can be like, you know, work. The one universal rule of work is that the way to get work done is by doing the work.

And thus ends my little self-pep talk for the day. Now, gotta go see a wizard boy about a broom.

There but for the grace

At the coffee joint. The woman at the table next to me is clucking like a chicken.

See, if I had an artists's garret I'd miss out on this sort of thing. Also, I'd be clucking like a chicken myself, probably.

Claws and talons

This is one of those times that I probably shouldn't be writing a journal entry, because I'm feeling crabby, and, like, the world needs more crabbiness? Hardly.

But, but, but ... I took my fritzy laptop power adaptor (still under warranty) to the Apple store, and the guy at the Genius Bar told me I'd have to wait six hours till he could take a look at it. Can you imagine bringing a defective flashlight to Radio Shack and having to wait six hours for someone to flick the switch and determine that it wasn't working and they should give you a new one? Wouldn't that make you crabby?

And, and, and ... my ribs still hurt too much for me to go to class! It hurts when I breathe deeply or cough or twist around. Isn't that just cause for crabbiness? Isn't it?

On the other hand, I had a nice lunch with a buddy and it was good and companionable.

And, while fetching the mail, I came within ten yards of a hawk in the grass with a pigeon in its clutches, and it was just standing there, all "Look at me, I'm a badass hawk and I hunted this here pigeon, and once I'm done posing I'm gonna wing away and eat fresh kill." And, then, that's exactly what it did.

So, good lunch, cool hawk. I'm still crabby, but at least I recognize the ridiculosity of my crabbiness. I get points for self-awareness. I do.

Tormament

So, I've done a few of these martial arts tournaments now, but before this morning, I've only competed in forms, which is basically doing a choreographed set of martial arts movements in air. Forms are cool. I like forms. And competing in a martial arts tournament is kind of cool, because it's 180 degrees away from anything I ever thought I would end up doing. I'm not much into competition, and the presence of people cheering and trophies and judging and all that is pretty far removed from everything I like about martial arts, but I've found value in doing things simply for the novel experience of doing something I never in a million years saw myself doing.

This morning, I competed in sparring. We wear some protective gear -- a thin, padded helmet, light gloves, foot pads, a cup, and a mouth guard. Some people also wear shin guards and rib guards, though I don't have those. The idea is to kick and punch your opponent and score five points (2 points for a kick, 1 point for a punch) before your opponent scores five points on you. You can't hit anything below the waist, or the face.

I lost pretty badly, and I only remember three of the five points he scored on me. Two points were for the foot he planted in my ribs, which knocked the wind out of me and liquefied my spleen. Maybe cracked a rib, too, I'm not sure. That was a good hit, and a fair one. He was given another point when he socked me in the eye. If that'd been the first point he scored off of me, I might have quit right then, cuz it hurt. It was also an illegal hit. Not that, if the judges hadn't awarded him a point for it, I still wouldn't have lost, because there was that spleen killer, plus two points beside that I kind of lost track of.

Adding insult to injury, I hate this guy. I've beaten him in forms and seen him throw little trantrums. I've seen him lose in other sparring competitions and watched him throw his helmet into the stands. He's a jerk, he doesn't represent anything good about martial arts, and I wish he hadn't beaten me. I still congratulated him, but what I really wanted to say was, "Yeah, you beat me, but you're still a jerk, and I hope someone good from my school breaks your jaw."

Nobody from my school broke his jaw. One guy from my school did beat him cleanly and fairly, but it's not like I'm all gung-ho and into school spirit or anything, so I really take only minimal pleasure from his loss.

So, now, ice for my eye, Advil for my ribs, and probably I'm done with martial arts competition, except for the one that constantly plays in my mind in which I'm beating up the 23 guys that have come to wreck my uncle's restaurant.

Small scoops on a grey day

I love a serendipitous discovery. I took a walk around the block today and found a new art supply shop, right here in my little neighborhood. I have no idea what used to be in that location, but the art place is ginormous and enormical. If only I painted, because they have a sprawling selection of paints and canvases. Not much in the way of pens, but I did find a nice, cheap, fat Sumo Grip ballpoint that feels good in my hand and that I won't mind losing as I am wont to do with cheap pens. Such a small, unexpected pleasure, like a scoop of ice cream.

I managed about 2,000 words today. 500 words is marginally acceptable for me. 1,000 is good. 2,000 is really good. I'm still kind of feeling my way through parts of this, assisted by H.R. Ellis Davidson's Road to Hel, and even more, by conversation at WFC and email with Dave Schwartz, who not only has a great feel for this Norse stuff, but unlike me, he's studied it formally beyond the two classes I took as an undergrad. Mostly my questions to him are along the lines of, If I screw around with the myth in such and such a way, would you think me hopelessly ignorant? Would it piss you off? Could Hel shoes be, like, robot shoes? So far, Dave's been very encouraging. Good man, that Dave.

Someday Starbucks will stop selling the pumpkin spice latte, and on that day I will know sadness. I know it's coming.

And now, a little quote:

We all write poems. It's simply that poets are the ones who write in words. -- John Fowles

Escape Pod interview

At the World Fantasy Convention, Scott Janssens interviewed me about flash fiction for Escape Pod, and the interview has been posted. Have a listen, should you like to hear me talk about story grenades and babies in blenders.

Be my roadie. Please?

John Bonham had a roadie named Micky Hinton. They liked to go about dressed in identical Clockwork Orange droog outfits. On one plane flight, Bonham wakes up to find that, while in a drunken stupor, he's peed in his droog pants. "Hinty!" he screams. "I've soiled me trousers. Trade pants with me!" And Hinty, being a good roadie, swaps his own dry pants for Bonham's urine-damp pants.

This morning I woke up with one of the worst migraines of my life. It feels like my skull's been shattered and all the bone fragments are corkscrewing into the deepest, most hidden parts of my brain, such as the parts that can do math and where map-reading skills are located. You know. The very deeply submerged parts.

If only I had a roadie.

"Hinty, me skull's fucked! Trade heads with me!"

World Fantasy Convention - After the Rabbit

Just a few of many highlights:

Pleasant and entertaining gabbing in Karen's kitchen while being fed an endless stream of bacon, which led to the creation of a new Asimov's column: Household Tips From Ted.

Watching people buy shoes, which can be a lot of fun when the people buying them are so obviously delighted at the fabulousness of their shoes.

Many nice encounters and conversations in hallways, and fun times around tables with food on them, including American, American, Ethiopian, Japanese, and American, or sometimes just drinks.

Good parties that were crowded, but not so much that I needed to scream and cry and seek escape in the air ducts.

Lori showed me that when I spar, I leave some vulnerable spots open, such as my head, torso, and legs.

The little settin' area right outside the Governor's Club lounge. No portraits of dead white men staring at you, but you can still enjoy the free hooch and you don't have to truck with rabbits.

It's all kind of a blur, really, but it's a pleasant, soft-focus blur with warm lighting. Like a Hallmark commercial, kinda, only not so much with the nausea.

World Fantasy Convention - Report #1

There is a rabbit in the Governor's Club lounge. We are being told it does a dead-on impersonation of former United States president Millard Filmore. Some people are uncomfortably eager to agree with the dead-onness of the impersonation, while others angrily protest that it's comically poor impersonation.

We are not allowed to leave.

20K

I asked the guy cutting my hair if he typically enjoys Halloween. He does not. The costumes freak him out, all those ghosts and skeletons and spooky things. When he was growing up in Viet Nam in the early and mid-70's, there were bodies buried beneath and behind his house, and there were spirits upstairs. So, for him, Halloween is not so whimsical. I think that's understandable.

***

I arrived at martial arts class last night only to find that they were closing early on account of Halloween, which would have been fine if they'd announced that beforehand and saved me 40 minutes of unnecessary driving. So, instead of kicking and punching, I decided to go get a French bread pizza at the supermarket. Ordinarily I would have changed out of my karate get-up first, but since it was Halloween, I figured people would assume I was in costume as opposed to assuming I was looking for a fight, and since nobody challenged me, I think all assumptions worked in my favor.

My school has been annoying me in various ways lately -- mandatory tournaments, things like that -- and there's a new Wing Chun school that opened down the road, so I might swing by today and at least pick up a class schedule. No school is perfect, and switching schools can mean trading one set of imperfections for another, but, enh, I've at least pressed my nose to the window of every martial arts school in a 20-mile radius, so I may as well check it out.

After my tasty and nutritious tv-dinner, I decided to avoid moping about not being able to kick and punch by going to the coffee joint for a writing session and a pumpkin spice latte. I edged really close to the 20K mark on the thing I been typing on, and this morning I crossed it, about which I am much pleased. This is a good juncture at which to read back what I've written, maybe allow myself a day or two for course corrections, and then be ready to press on after World Fantasy Con. I hope to find myself fired up about writing after spending three days with the brilliant and talented, and maybe that'll be enough to propel me for another 20K words. Unfortunately, there's not another con scheduled to get me beyond that, so I'll be on my own.