Author: Don

Reading Is Fundamental

I know I read a few things since the last entry, but I lost track. I have no other excuses–just saying that life happens and is actually continuing to happen.  (Cryptic, I know.  Sorry.)  Still, the only way out is through, and I need to get back on track with things like writing and reading, and talking about what I’m reading.

From the 14th through the 20th, I actually read quite a bit…

I finished up the last bit of Lightspeed Magazine 2:

  • “The Zeppelin Conductors’ Society Annual Gentlemen’s Ball” by Genevieve Valentine. So far, I’m 2 for 2 in never having read a Valentine story I didn’t like.
  • “…For a Single Yesterday” by George R.R. Martin. There’s a certain tier of SF/F writers that I just haven’t managed to read yet. Martin, De Lint, etc. Stories like this erode the consolation I take in the idea that I just can’t read everything.  5 out of 5 for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that if I hadn’t read in advance that the story was first published a mere two years after I was born, I might never have known.

I started Objects of Worship by Claude Lalumière.  As of now, I’m actually almost done with it.  I can’t remember when I got through anyone’s short story collection this fast.  All I can say is that, a few personal quibbles aside, Lalumière’s writing definitely lives up to its hype.

  • “The Object of Worship.” Never before has the opening story of a collection blown me away like this. Wonderful!  5 out of 5.
  • “The Ethical Treatment of Meat” had its ups and downs for me.  4 out of 5, but only because the main conceit of the story started being teased so well and then, in expository dialogue, “Whoomp, there it is!”
  • “Hochelaga and Sons” definitely takes a page out of the Kavalier and Clay playbook. But only one. 4 out of 5.
  • “The Sea, at Bari” hits some really nice Lovecraftian notes, but is still very much its own story.  5 out of 5.
  • “The Darkness at the Heart of the World” seamlessly crams the main character’s entire mortal lifetime in a short-story. I’m astounded, to be honest.  5 out of 5.
  • “Spiderkid” does the same thing “Hochelaga” did, but in a completely different way.  4 out of 5.
  • “Njabo” is a master-class in how to write non-traditional family situations without hitting the reader over the head with “This is a Non-Traditional Family, Look at Me, Look at Me!!”  5 out of 5, even though I’m unsure if the ending of the story didn’t surprise me because the writing telegraphed it or because I chanced upon this article from io9 the same day I was reading this story.

I bought the TPB of The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis a couple of weeks ago. In a sense, it was pretty senseless, since I have all four of the original books that make up The Collected Stories, though I’ve only read three. I hadn’t read Davis’s second collection, 1997’s Almost No Memory. I’m about ten pieces in. I won’t list or review them. Anyone who’s familiar with Davis’s work understands that the distinction between “story” and “prose poem” is so blurred–I just don’t feel qualified to comment on it, except to say that rarely do her pieces fail to resonate with me.

“Going the Distance”

I’ve missed a few writing- and reading-progress posts lately.  No excuses.  Just an explanation: Life, quite simply, happened.  There were happy- and not-so-happy things that led to exhaustion, a near-breakdown, and almost total radio- (read: internet) silence. 

I’m a bit better, now.  I’m limping along.  My frustration tolerance is severely fried.  The slightest life setbacks–and there have been at least 2 per day, every day, for the past two weeks now–make me want to curl up into a ball. 

But today, not so much.  Enough is enough.  I’m getting back on the horse.  Gotta go the distance, just like Rocky.  Although I’m doing it to a laid-back Menahan Street Band groove, rather than the full-on Bill Conti one.

I lugged the laptop-formerly-known-as-my-desktop out to the writing spot.  This is the first time in almost three years I haven’t been hunched over a netbook.  I gotta say my back and neck feel better for it.  If I can just get a new battery for this beast (current battery holds absolutely no charge whatsoever), I might try this more often.  The screen is bigger (obviously) and I forgot just how much better the audio sounds.  I mention it only because this machine is helping me do something very important right now, namely get a global view of everything I have to catch up with.  Increased screen real estate makes that so much easier.

My head’s a jumble right now, and having a mess of open text-files, sticky notes, and mind maps is helping me flush that jumble out of my head and into something I can later organize and act on.  Because it’s no use “going the distance” if you don’t even know where you are, let alone where you’re going.

My Face Is Made for Podcasting

Out today: the 49th episode of The Functional Nerds podcast, hosted by Patrick Hester and John Anealio , featuring Carrie Cuinn and me talking about Cthulhurotica, which of course degenerated, uh, led to discussions of tentacle pr0n, plushie C’thulhus, and Urotsukidōji: Legend of the Overfiend.

Thanks again to Patrick and John for having us!

Listen | Download

“I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain…”

I could also call this entry, like the last one, “a dollar short and a day late.”   More like, two weeks late.

So, there’s two weeks’ worth of progress.  There were good and not-so-good reasons I missed writing time for the past two sets of Wednesdays and Fridays in a row.  This week, I’m batting 0 for 3 so far.  Oh, I’ve made tiny bits of progress, but not enough to justify X-ing out my days.  OTOH, I did score a win by finishing the first phase of my seekrit non-fiction project. 

Oh, well.  Better to light an inch then curse the dark, right?

Reading is Fundamental

Yes, it’s sad.  I missed a week of posting what I’ve read and how my writing has progressed.  What can I say?  It’s been one busy blur… lots to talk about about, and actually one or two things I can’t just yet.

But, ’til then, back to business.  Here’s what I’ve read over a fortnight.  It wasn’t much…

Yeah, yeah, I know I said I was going to get to Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life and Others, but it’s hard carrying around and reading a dead tree book while maneuvering through an upstate New York winter.  So I started one of the many ‘zines I purchased for my Nook during the holiday season, namely Apex Magazine #15.

  • “Fair Ladies” by Theodora Goss.  A lovely, richly-detailed story.  Not entirely certain how much I bought the trajectory of the main character’s arc, though–at least not through the time gap near the end.  4 out of 5.
  • “Four Is Me! With Squeeeeee! (And LOLer)” by Nick Mamatas.  A story about the future told in a data-stream of consciousness.  Exquisite!  5 out of 5.
  • “Secret Life” by Jeff Vandermeer.  There’s a reason people tell you not to write office-space-as-metaphor stories.  The one you write will never be as good as this one.  5 out of 5.

Then I loaded up Clarkesworld 50 for the heck of it…

  • “On the Banks of the River Lex” by N.K. Jemesin.  In comic book terms, this was sort of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman meets Brian Wood’s DMZ. I feel like I have to give it a 5 out of 5, since the one thing that sticks in my craw about this story isn’t the story’s fault.  It’s just that, sort of like DMZ, the obvious love for NYC comes across as something I, as a reader, could only really understand if I was cool enough to have once lived there.
  • “Seeing” by Genevieve Valentine.  I don’t know how I’ve managed to miss her fiction.  It took me awhile to remember that I was reading Clarkesworld and not Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet.  In other words: dystopic astronomy and space-travel FTW!  5 out of 5.

From Lightspeed Magazine 2…

  • “No Time Like the Present” by Carol Emshwiller.  Since precious few other writers can keep you invested in a story whose plot you’ve figured out all of two pages in, this gets 5 out of 5!

“Going back to Cali, stylin’, profilin’…”

Layna Pimentel gave me one of these, so I’m stylin’ and profilin’!  Personally, it reminds me how I really need to spruce the place up a bit.  I mean, I guess it’s stylish in a retro, used Salvo thrift store outfit kinda way.  Yeah, or not.  But anyway, I won and I’m grateful!

The rules of the Stylish Blogger Award call for me to tell seven things about myself.  I’ll give it a shot, trying not to repeat anything I might’ve said before.

  1. I have lived in what can be described, to varying degrees, as “college towns” for 10 years, now, and I’ve loved it!
  2. I have hit a woman–but in a sparring match, and only after having been hit and kicked a few times first. (And not ‘cos I was a gentleman, but because she was too fast.)
  3. I have Huey Lewis & The News’ whole catalog. Shut up.
  4. I videotaped the entire Jon Pertwee run of DOCTOR WHO off the local PBS station when I was a kid. 
  5. I know enough knife fighting techniques to know how dangerous a prospect it is.  I, however, am not really much of a threat to anyone.
  6. The first, and so far only, concert that ever came close to making me cry was Cassandra Wilson. (The clip isn’t from the actual show, but from the same tour.)
  7. I never considered myself a “horror writer,” though I guess, technically…?

“What is this thing called love?”

I’ve joked before about how I look at my last two publications of 2010, which fall under the umbrella of “weird erotica,” and think to myself, as David Byrne sang, “My God! What have I done?”

Pulling double duty, Harry Markov reviews both of the anthologies in which I’ve appeared recently, and he does so on Valentine’s Day, no less.  Because nothing says Valentine’s Day like zombie sex and tentacle pr0n…

Markov mentions my story “Sublimation” in his review of Rigor Amortis over at Innsmouth Free Press, which he says “…pushes all the right buttons in a lust-filled story about human cruelty and zombies used as sex toys.”

You might argue whether or not “Rigor Amortis fails as zombie erotica,” but the part about how “it succeeds as an examiner of the human heart and the human libido after death”–yes, that!

I didn’t consider this ’til just this second–you’d think my story “The C-Word,” set in Innsmouth, would be somewhere in IFP.  I’m not bothered, though, since Cthulhurotica is mentioned more than a few times there.  Markov does mention it over at Rise Reviews.  I have to say, I agree with him when he says that, “What you, as the reader, must know about “Cthulhurotica” is the anthology’s conviction.  I’ve never read an anthology so sure in its identity, with a such a strong voice or as consistent in its theme.”

“That’s the sound of the men working on the chain gang”

Leave it to me to lose writing days on the month with the fewest…

No, I’m not having a pity party.  I’m just saying that not only did I miss a couple of days, I even low-balled some of my goals just to make sure I had Xes to make.  Still, better to light an inch than curse the dark, eh?  I did make progress with the seekrit nonfic WIP and even started a new flash story.  Which reminds me, I should find something to do with my last flash, huh…?

Reading is Fundamental

I spent last week with the rest of Karen Joy Fowler’s new collection What I Didn’t See and Other Stories.
[Edited to add: My Working Writer’s Daily Planner says it’s KJF’s birthday today–Happy Birthday!!]

“Familiar Birds.”  It’s funny how I keep coming across these “Back when I was a kid” stories lately.  I liked this one even better than I liked Mark Rigney’s “Portfolio” from LCRW 22.  5 out of 5.

“Private Grave 9.”  A detailed account of a character’s slow almost(?)-descent into… something.  5 out of 5.

“The Marianas Islands.”  It had my favorite passage in the book so far, and one of the more interesting main characters.  The ending was a little too abrupt for me.  4 out of 5.

“Once when I was four or five I asked my grandmother to tell me a secret, some secret things only grown-ups knew.  She thought a moment, then leaned down close to me and whispered.  ‘There are no grown-ups,’ she said.”

“Halfway People.”  Probably has my second-favorite line in the collection, but I’m pretty sure it’s my favorite story overall.  5 out of 5.

“But a story never told is also a danger, particularly to the people in it.”

“Standing Room Only.”  One story with John Wilkes Booth, dancing around his most infamous performance in the Ford Theater?  Okay.  Two?  I don’t know. 3 out of 5.

“What I Didn’t See.”  Loved the ending, but it just took a little too long to get there for me.  3.5 out of 5.

“King Rat.”  This was in the Trampoline anthology, but I hadn’t gotten that far yet.  A nicely solemn riff on the Pied Piper story.  5 out of 5.

“They’re doin’ the Bump N Touch. They’re doin’ the Dap-Dip. EVERYthing.”

I’d been looking forward to seeing Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings since they were here two years ago.  It was less of a straight-up concert than it was a real soul/R&B revue.  It was a party!

Two nights ago, my evening started a bit early in a new(-ish) bar and on Facebook with my new “friend,” Binky Griptite…

(Yeah, could’ve been a Daptone Records intern, but who cares?)

Binky and The Dap-Kings started off with one of my favorite songs of 2010, “The Reason.”  A couple of tunes later, Binky introduced the newest rising star in the Daptone soul universe, a “young voice,” Charles Bradley!  As in, 62 years young and still kicking ass!  I was too far away (and dancing) to get any decent shots.  But I did get him to sign his No Time for Dreaming CD I bought at intermission.

Afterward, the Dee-Kays warmed us back up.  By this point, I was down near the front!

After this point, I just remember a blur of funk and dancing…

Sharon & Charles showing us how it was done back in the day.

I got to hang around for autographs at the end.  I didn’t have anything for Sharon to sign (I already got her the last time she was in town), but I did get to thank her for coming back.  In return, she says, “Give me some sugar” and plants a kiss on my cheek!!

I will NEVER wash my cheek again!

And then, brother Charles did me the honor…

The Mrs. had the honor of becoming a 3rd Dapette…

…while I snagged autographs from Bosco Mann and Cochemea Gastulem, who were giggling uncontrollably for some reason.  Probably because some woman snagged my pen to get them to sign her ticket, and then I went, “Hey, as long as you’ve got my pen…”

I have to say, my con experiences have paid off.  I wasn’t half as fanboy-ish and starstruck as I could’ve been.  Of course, the Daptone Records folks always seemed like cool, friendly folk all around, and approachable, which made it easy.