Don – Page 46 – DONFOOLERY

Tough Love

I feel like a writer again, having brought the most words (1.5k) than I have in weeks to the crit group. Of course, that’s more to be vivisected. The good news is that the win column on this latest bit of my short story seems to be longer than the fail column!

For the Win

The story remains “intriguing.”
One reader was glad to be able to understand my world’s tech as I’ve written it (she isn’t typically a sci-fi reader). Another appreciated [I’m paraphrasing, here] the lack of technobabble.
More praise for my dialogue. One person in particular noted that when characters are asked questions, no one really gets a “direct answer.” Put by another reader, the answers are given “how real people talk.”
There “wasn’t a dull place” in the section I brought.
Praise for the family dynamics I illustrated between the main character, his sister and his parents.
My descriptions about emotional reactions were “sparse” yet “dynamic.”

Fail!

Unclear to some readers “where we’re going from here.” Namely, with regard to an important secondary character’s plans for the protagonist being unnecessarily vague.
A couple of lines that need to be rearranged for clarity.
A plot point about a lie that didn’t really make sense.

So, maybe on my road trip to Boston, Mass tomorrow, I can at least give some thought to where I’m going from here. ‘Cos hell if I know.

“You’ve changed the desktop theme, haven’t you?”

I’m proud of myself! I only have one “before” picture. The rest is (semi-) finshed product.

Still lots to rearrange, sort, and maybe dump. I’ve got my eye out for a new desk. Something without a hutch and with lots of space on top. But I consider this major headway on something that’s been bugging me for the better part of this year. I was finally inspired to do something after months at leering at the productivity pr0n that is the Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Flickr group.

Fallen

Fell Volume 1: Feral City by Warren Ellis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Why the hell did I put off buying this for so long? I’ve read about it for years, Ellis’s experimental 9-panel 16 pg comic with art by Ben Templesmith.

Fans of Ellis’s writing will find a lot to love, here: a flawed hero who wins some and loses some, odd and sometimes disturbing facts seamlessly woven into the story, and not too much of, as another reviewer said, the usual ranting.

Two nits: The style of Fell’s dialogue sometimes blends into that of the minor characters, which is to say into Warren Ellis speak. Consider my favorite line, a bit from a narration box by Detective Richard Fell:

Grab a death coffee from Mr. Yang, the food pervert. He melts a Hershey bar into a pot of filter coffee, pours a 1602 and then drops a depth-charge of espersso on it. And maybe crystal meth. I don’t know anymore what feels worse: Having one death coffee a day, or skipping it. I can already feel my internal organs going into crisis mode. At the end of my shift, the world’s going to fall out of my butt.

As much as I’d love this coffee, the writing is the same stuff I read daily on Ellis’s blog.

Second nit is that, like Desolation Jones, I’m left hanging, waiting for more adventures. The last issue published was #9, which I bought awhile ago. I didn’t realize that I now have the entire series! 🙁

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Get Rich Quick

The Baum Plan for Financial Independence: And Other Stories by John Kessel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“Genre-blending,” to me, usually means”genre+literary” (whatever “literary” means). But a lot of the blending in this collection is “genre + genre,” as in the historical-crime/fantasy story “Every Angel is Terrifying,” or the future-crime/sci-fi first movement of the Lunar Quartet, “The Juniper Tree.”

Kessel’s historical/literary mash-ups were brilliant, too: Orson Welles in a sci-fi story (“It’s All True”)–who’d have thought? The name and spirit of Tyler Durden carrying on in a lunar colony in the second movement of the Lunar Quartet, “Stories for Men.” “Pride and Prometheus” is a Nebula award winner for good reason!

My favorite thing, from a technical standpoint, is the near-flawless worldbuilding in each story, done such that the story’s obvious themes are never heavy-handed or preachy.

What made it one star short of five was the third movement of The Lunar Cycle. The cycle is comprised of 4 stories, one of them almost 80 pages long–and we all know how I feel about stories that go on longer than the average story by Etgar Keret or Lydia Davis. Oddly enough, I loved the longest story (“Stories for Men”). It was the significantly shorter story immediately after it, “Under the Lunchbox Tree.” It’s obviously supposed to be more low-key, but it still seems anticlimactic.

You can download the collection for free, from Small Beer Press, in multiple formats. I did, and I immediately knew I had to have the TPB.

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Convergence

Stories from two of my favorite authors appear in the same episode of PRI’s Selected Shorts: Aimee Bender’s “Drunken Mimi” and “Death Watch” (read by Bernadette Qugley) and Etgar Keret’s “Your Man” and “Shooting Tuvia” (read by David Rakoff).

Tough Love

I low-balled my wordcount for yesterday’s critique group crucifixion session again. 820 words. Just couldn’t get the story done, but I did bring something. Better to light an inch than curse the darkness after all, no?

I took bits of the next scene I’d planned and decided to staple it to the end of the scene I brought last time. An obvious decision that you just don’t see when you’re in the midst of a puke draft. Comments were as follows…

Story Win

I was a little clearer about the way the tech in this story works.
Tension was raised
Like last week, readers like the interaction between the protagonist and his sister.
I painted a clear picture of the protagonist being a little foolhardy, yet barreling ahead anyway.
Hm…I made a note of “Not a lot of words,” but I’ve forgotten what that meant…?

Story Fail

Anything involving the color green and computer coding will always say The Matrix.
[I’m paraphrasing here] The form of the tech in my story, as I describe it, doesn’t follow the function I describe. Or at least, I’m overcomplicating it.
[Edited to add] I evidently don’t know how to spell the singular of lenses.

Thank God for the techies in my group, that’s all I have to say! 🙂

Shortcomings

Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Wow, if I’d taken a precious few different turns in life, I might have ended up exactly like the protagonist of this story, Ben. Definitely hit close to home.

This may be the first time, though, that I’ve come across a protagonist I didn’t like. And I’ve read lots and lots of Carver (with whose work Tomine’s is often compared). Yes, the ending of Ben’s story is open to interpretation, but to me it’s pretty clear. Based on what I read, what Ben sees at the end is what he has and maybe all he’ll ever have.

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[Note to self: How come I’ve never used this feature from goodreads before???]

Readin’, Writin’, Race

Two of my stories–“Good for the Gander” and “Tough Love”–have been listed in the 2009 Short Fiction by People of Color on the Carl Brandon Society wiki, and on the CBS’s blog as well.

It’s been a prompt for me to finally give some thought about readin’, writin’, & race.

…?

Oh, wait–you were expecting me to have thought those thoughts and expound on them? Unfortunately, I’m not quite there yet. But, I have considered a few back-of-the-envelope points.

1
I’ve put off thinking about this topic since I started spewing words onto paper five or so years ago. I had horrible visions of writing some manifesto that starts “As an Asian-American writer, I…” or writing some story about some thirtysomething First Generation Flipino.

2
For years I’ve been hiding behind my beginner status. (You could make a good argument that I should keep doing just that!) “Just learn how to write and get to the race stuff later,” I told myself. And to be honest, I never felt any real pressure to get to it. But not only did I feel some internal pressure, and it was a horrible push/pull situation. I subconsciously feared how much would be riding on writing “my “Filipino story.” I was probably overthinking the whole thing. Thing is, growing up Filipino and Catholic instills a fear of fucking up like you wouldn’t believe.

3
(or, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Race in My Writing Until I Had Something to Say”)

The only thing I can offer in my defense is that you wouldn’t have wanted to read any “Filipino story” I might’ve written 2-3 years ago. But as it happens, I’m working on a piece right now with Filipino characters. Not because of any pressure, nor to make any particular statement. I’ve got a yarn to spinl about certain characters who’ve grown up a certain way, who have made or will make choices about their life paths.

More to come later, maybe.

Law Unto Myself, Part II

I’m seeing all sorts of Twitter users with actually “follow policies.” I understand it, really I do. I get spammers, too. But I haven’t read a follow policy yet that doesn’t seem like so much overkill.

The simple act of telling myself “You are not going to waste time thinking about a Twitter policy” was enough to make my brain start generating ideas. Luckily, I stopped it cold before it could get any further than this.

Don’s Twitter Follow Policy

1
I will follow you only if: you can at least fool me into thinking you’re (a) not a bot and (b) tweeting about things I could maybe, possibly care about.

2
I will not follow you if: you really can’t manage both of the simple things I’ve listed above.

3
I will block you if: I feel like it.

‘Nuff said, isn’t it?

A Rare Chance to Be a Law Unto Myself

Not sure exactly when this started, but Blogger evidently lets you set a message on the comment form for your entries. Mine reads…

No words about civilized commenting behavior. Just a reminder that this blog is here to serve my freedom of speech, not yours!

I reserve the right to arbitrarily wield my moderation power like a child who just found his father’s handgun.

So, whaddya say?

I know, it’s not like I get a ton of comments around here, especially during the long, long period where this site was nothing but reposted tweets. But eventually, something I write will invite comment and when it does, I’ll be waiting with my hand on the button like an FCC agent at an Andrew Dice Clay show.