Back To School

I love having a stationary bike in my room near the TV. With training for the Madison marathon still 2 weeks away, and no desire to run in the cold unless I have to, I've been spending an hour or so a night on the bike, riding and working my way through Lost (just started the second episode of season 5). Yesterday I rode 25 miles and through the season 4 finale.

Wednesday was the official start of the semester, and though I wasn't supposed have class until Friday, by some sheer coincidence I found myself in Ann Arbor at noon working for four hours and then going to class. Originally my schedule had me taking two classes on Monday and one on Friday (a graphic design class that I signed up for strictly because there was a lack of other classes that were interesting or in my field). Then at 11:30 PM on Tuesday night an email goes out saying "Hey, we're offering SI:515 on Wednesday from 4-7." SI:515 "Material Culture and the Interpretation of Objects" is more an Archivist class than a strict library science class, but it interested me, and was one that I'd originally wanted to take. And by sheer coincidence, a four hour work shift opened up beforehand. Check out the Open courseware syllabus here.

Yesterday I read the first 200 pages of The Rider, in an attempt to start on the editing process. There having been about 6 months since I finished it, it was like reading a brand new novel, which is exactly what I'd been hoping for. There are some glaringly obvious errors and weak spots. Better than that, there are stronger solutions logically presenting themselves that I can work on over the next couple months of editing. I'm hoping to finish the readthrough (minus note-taking) tomorrow.

I was invited along Chrissie (a fellow SI student and gamer) to start writing for The Indie Arcade, an independent game review and news site. I'll get a permanent link up soon.

I'm also currently reading Stephen King's Under the Dome. It's a lot of super fun. Full review on the way.

Marathon Training Day 1

"Monday is always a day of rest...Let's begin this Monday, the first day of your marathon journey, by contemplating the training that will begin tomorrow."

Hal Higdon

I'm not kidding you. That's what it says under the Monday slot of the marathon training program (follow the link above if you don't believe me). Best marathon training ever.

For those of you who don't know, I made a point of in my first of the year post about how I was going to train for the Chicago Marathon. Sadly that fell through, as the Chicago Marathon was sold out when I went to register for it in April. So after a quick search of US Marathons in Wikipedia, I discovered that Detroit has a marathon and that, for starters, it is marginally cheaper than Chicago's (Detroit is 75, Chicago is 125), and that there are still spots available. I also managed to convince my friend Kate (who has now run two, maybe three marathons) that she should train out in LA, and then we should run it together (and I was successful). So now begins my mad dash towards the gloried 26.2.

That's not the only big news.

Yesterday I hit 100,000 words in the novel. I'd thought when I set out to finish this thing, that this would be the end, but it's shaping up to be about 110-120k...Not a great prospect, but for a first time novel, I'm ok with that. The goal now (after many sad revisions) is that I can squeak out the first draft sometime this week. Then begins the fun editing process...

And on that note I've got to start focusing again back on the internship.

The Travels and Travails

I've been on a near constant move since Spring Break (between Los Angeles, Lansing Ann Arbor, and Chicago this weekend). A full post is coming soon with pictures and thoughts and all, and then a post on The House on the Rock, continuing my American Gods Road Trip planning. Until then I leave you with a little snippet I started writing on the flight back from Los Angeles to Atlanta. Dunno what it's going to become.

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You put on your toothy customer-service smile and while the prerecorded voice dispenses advice that no one listens to, you go through the motions that no one watches. Point to the exits. Two to the side. Two to the rear. Fasten the mock safety belt, tighten it down. Always smiling. Put on the mock oxygen mask and give it one good, bag-swelling breath for show. Then the captain, who always souds like a failed radio personality assures everyone about the weather, the plane and the arrival time. Then you take your seat with all electronic devices off and seats and trays in their upright and locked positions for take off. Always smiling.

The girls like to talk. About their kids, always just in college. About their husbands. About some prime time TV show, or the new Oprah Book Club book. Not me. I sit and read. Mysteries, sometimes classics, maybe some science fiction. Anything I can get my hands on between flights. Mostly I keep to myself.

Home is a duffel bag with some casual clothes and an extra set of work clothes. If pressed about where I'm from I'll say I pay state taxes in Illinois, but the last time I was there was a stopover in Chicago before a redeye to Portland.

I live in a constant state of limbo. Shifting time zones and perpetual jetlag. Everything at a distance. The ground far beow me. The people at arms length. Always smiling. It's the closest thing to living off the grid without having to exert any real effort to hide. If I'm not flying I get a hotel to get me through the night, and if I have a couple day's layover--something they force on me from timme to time--I go for long walks.

It's not much of a life, but it passes the time.

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And with that I'm going back to paying attention in class, and trying to catch up on homework. Real post soon.

Spring Break - Day Thre

Already it is just day three of spring break, and I'm going to declare this the utmost of break victories.

This weekend I chipped away 2500 words on my novel, leaving me at about 68,000-ish. Just about got Edmund out of the frustratingly slow situation he was in and back on the road where he should be. Spent most of this time hunched over my laptop at the Magic Johnson Starbucks in East Lansing.

Saturday night I went with my friend James out to the kick off party for an up and coming nonprofit called SCOUT BANANA (Serving Citizens Of Uganda Today Because Africa Needs A New Ambulance). Their website can be found here. It makes me extra happy because it is the continuation of an Eagle Scout project, helping to build necessary medical and educational infrastructure in Uganda. For the educational/informational part I put them in touch with the Community Informatics Corp, a student organization through SI interested in spreading information technology and infrastructure to communities both domestically and abroad. CIC's website can be found here. Best part of the kick off party was a guy in a banana suit rapping. I guess his rapper name was Philthy...

I've been able to enjoy some time to read also. Finished Neil Gaiman's The Sandman for the second time ever, and enjoying it even more this time than I did the first time. I'm also working my way through Alan Moore's Watchmen again in preparation for the movie. Early reviews I've read have said good things, but I still can't shake the nervousness of this so perfect and epic comic becoming another flub on the screen (see all of the comic to movie creations of Alan Moore's others, with the exception of V, which became a fun thing of its own).

Tomorrow morning bright and early (probably not even bright, judging by the departure time) I'll be flying out Los Angeles for the rest of the week, and most of next week. Out there I'll be writing, and relaxing and carousing with friends. Blog updates and pictures and twitters definitely to follow.

Now I have to pack up for lunch with my friend Scott from the Capitol Area District Library about a potential summer internship. More to come.

So This is the New Year

Wrote the title and then stopped, went back to my blog, checked last year's first post and realized that I'd also titled it "So This is the New Year." And then I sat down to read over what I'd written a year ago and see where things are.

I was thinking of doing another resolution post today. List the goals, talk about them, you know the drill. And last years post I did the exact same thing. So instead here is what didn't happen:

I didn't finish the novel
I didn't get lastingly in shape
I didn't give up soda
I didn't spend less

So we'll reset those goals and try again.

Now about the novel. It got as far as 60,000 words last December, and then a sudden realization of the story I was telling after a conversation with my friend Duke (his blog here) cost me about 10,000 words, of which I've recovered about 5,000. So the approximate word count (without actually looking at the document) is around 55,000 words. I'm figuring that by the end we're going to be looking at something close to 80-90,000 words.

For those of you who hear word count and have no idea what that means here are some references:

The Lord Of The Rings (~470,000 words)
The Hobbit (95,022 words)
The Gunslinger (55,376 words)
American Gods (183, 222 words)

(source)

So ~85,000 seems a pretty acceptable venture for a first time novel (that and there is no point in pushing the story further than it wants to go.

I've also decided that (after years of being wishy washy) that this year is the one for doing the Chicago Marathon. Going into training for that as soon as I have an understanding of my schedule (next week).

Duke and I started a sort of accountability on writing to ensure that we get stuff done. The goal is one short story a month. At the end of each month we send that short story to each other to do a first edit as we begin on next month's short story.

Should be good. And with that back to work and to class

Writing is what I do

November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I decided to give it a shot again this year, thinking I could rip something out in 30 days, giving myself a month off from The Rider. I decided to not stray too far, attempting to adapt a story about a guy who gets seduced by the devil, based from Meatloaf's Bat out of Hell album trilogy (an idea I've mulled about for a long time).

10,000 words and two weeks later I found myself thinking again and sitting in front of my laptop working on the rider. Edmund will not leave me alone.

I went to Chicago last weekend to see my old roommate graduate, and also to have a whirlwind trip through the town that I hated at first, but now miss so much. I saw a few, but not all of the friends that I wanted to. I ate at a few, but not all of the restaurants I wanted to. But nonetheless it was much needed and a very cathartic send off to the end of my first Semester at SI.

On my last day there I got a call from my writing buddy, Lane. He's now down at SIU doing his masters in creative writing, and teaching an undergrad course in the English Department. We've been unable to get back together on the couple of trips I made south, and spent a long time catching up on writing and what we're doing. He mentioned the rider alot, using his actual name, Edmund, which was very endearing, and I ended up walking away from the conversation charged up to start writing again.

So here I am, almost through November, failing again at NaNoWriMo, and not really caring because I am further into the rider than I've ever been.

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I tried something new, realizing I had a large number of unwritten or unfinished short stories. I took wall tack and 3x5 cards and on each card wrote a one sentence synopsis of the short story idea, and a hook if I could come up with one. Next I stuck the note cards on the wall in no particular order.

My plan is, starting in December, to take one card off the wall on the 1st, and by the end of the month have a first draft of a short story finished. Do this for each month, if only as an exercise to keep my skills sharpened while working on the rider's story.

Fly Be Free!

I just sent a finally finished short story, "Just Jazz" off to GUD Magazine. It's a hybrid online print magazine that's been around for about two years now. Usually I am skeptical of the whole online market, the fluidity of it, and other tenuous reasons. There is something professional and serious about actually having a real and tangible magazine in my hands that I can read and carry with me. This is only further been solidified (har har) by my MLIS classes and the transience and general distrust surrounding the whole digital media world.

But after further reading from Duotrope and other online sources I'm intrigued by GUD's ideology. They appear to be on the cutting edge of how e-markets and print on demand is going, and their payment plan seems to make sense in embracing the changing market.

So that's that. Another baby away into the wide world to get mocked and ridiculed and hopefully at some point loved for the redheaded stepchild that it is.

Pretentious Drivel

I finished the first draft of "Just Jazz" yesterday at a Starbucks in the mall. It took about 4 more hours of writing than I'd planned. Today the story is out with a couple of friends and a former teacher. They're doing read throughs on it and hopefully giving me some feedback.

Every time I finish a story these days I keep stepping back and wondering if I've written something good or if I'm just spouting pretentious drivel. It's something that is very easy to do, especially with a theme of fate, and destiny, and the interconnectedness of everything.

I could be going to Chicago tonight, or more than likely tomorrow morning. I'm hoping tonight, but fate rests in the hands of Duke.

The Last Sunday

I'm working at the library all day today. In a nutshell this means I'm sitting at the desk working on homework while around me students bustle and hurry to do their last minute homework also. Sunday is quiet enough that the most complicated question I've got is about printing and Oasis, the wonky page that allows classes to be somewhat internet based, that's if it ever worked.

I just sent a short story to Doorways Magazine, the one that Mort edits.

Also I'm hammering out the details with Twilight Tales about being their featured reader in June. The date is currently looking like the 30th of June, which would be very good because it falls on the same weekend as the Wizard World Chicago. So maybe I'll make a long weekend of it and come down and get my geek on.

I've got less than 7 days left here in Chicago and it really hasn't set in yet. I've been so busy just living on the road between couches and friends houses and the craziness of actually getting projects rolling and submitted that the fact that by next Sunday I won't be living here anymore has not set in. I know I'm going to need to start making serious plans to see as many people as I can before I finally bug out and off to the future.

In writerly news I'm still hammering away at Bombed, a post apocalyptic stoner buddy roadtrip comedy (the current word count is 18,000 words). I'm thinking about some major usurpations I'm going to be doing to the Rider's story. I'm working on finishing first drafts of a couple of short stories and I'm doing some preliminary research on a short story involving Yig the serpent god of the Cthulhu Mythos and the creation of Man according to the book of Genesis.

And now I'm back to figuring out what piece of work I can regurgitate for my History of the American Working Class final project.

Coming To A Head

I'm out in La Grange with my friend Lane, staying on his girlfriend's couch tonight. Right now I'm at the library reading DC Comic's Infinite Crisis. The big event from a year or so ago. It's pretty good and Geoff Johns is my favorite writer (see his work on the Green Lantern volume 4 (Rebirth, Sinestro Corps War, and the upcoming Blackest Night)), I've just never been a big fan of DC's big events, and most of the Crisis events have been a let down. Except Identity Crisis, which is some of the best comic writing to date.

Things are starting to come to a head with school. I have 6 days left. One story is out circulating, and, for a grade for my Fantasy class, and for the sake of getting things out, a second story is entering its final draft and getting ready to head out.

A little over a week ago I had my reading with the fantasy class at Twilight Tales. I posted about it here. And I just got an email from Mike Martinez from Twilight Tales about being a featured reader in June. When I work the details out I'll be posting more information.

And with that I'm back to reading comics.

The ADD Of My Writing Life

So I'm reading Silver: My Own Tale As Written By Me With A Goodly Amount Of Murder, a novel by first-time author, Edward Chupack. You can visit the site for the novel here. I wrote him this afternoon about how much I'm enjoying his novel, and I got a response back a few hours later. Which brings me to my first point: I love first time novelists and their books. Maybe being unpublished makes me partial. Last fall I read first time novelist, Mark Ferrari's novel The Book of Joby, and when I finished it I emailed him and said thank you, and a few hours later I got a very happy response back. I had mentioned it a couple times earlier in this blog, and was happy to discover that Mark Ferrari, noticing the link in my email signature, checked out my blog, and thanked me for mentioning his book there (so if you're still reading, thank you! that meant a lot to me).

The other thing this raucous swash-buckling adventure did for me was get me thinking about pirates again. I spent the morning thinking about how you never hear about modern day pirates even though it is still happening. So I got to thinking about how interesting a swash-buckling modern day adventure with ruthless pirates would be, but the fear of getting myself stuck in another novel start gave me pause. And then, while reading on train home and listening to rollicking pirate-ee music on my dying iPod, it hit me.

I've been trying to figure out what the story about the Peanuts narrator is. I talk about him here. I workshopped one of the chapters in my Fiction Seminar class and the narrator was a resounding success. His wit, his snark, his situation with girls. The problem was that it was this rather unfocused explosion of emotion and really excessive description of his apartment. Is his now ex-girlfriend important? Is the British girl he likes important? I had to make up my mind about what the story is about. And while the ex is able to offer an amusing couple of scenes the real story is about the British girl, and his attempts to get her, which result in a plane crash and the establishment of his own oil-platform-like country, Myland. So his plane crashes in the Atlantic and then he is floating until he happens upon this platform, and he has to get rescued. And I had no idea how. And then today it hit me. Pirates. I can make this novel into something of a picaresque absurdist adventure that plays by its own rules. He gets saved by pirates who agree to carry him to shore on the condition that Myland will be cool with piracy.

This way I'll be able to buckle some swashes and not get preoccupied with another half finished novel.

And I'm thinking now of calling the book "Finding Myland: Or Why I No Longer Date British Girls" or something close to that.

The Name Game

I changed the name of this blog again... See it's different. It's different because I can't decide.

I had a lot of fun writing the story of Charon (pronounced as far as i can tell Kai-ron (like the bad guy from Robotech)). It makes me want to try again. I noticed on my hard drive that I have a collection of these sort of first person "this is my life" stories. Little first person ditties musing about existence or their lot in life. Maybe I'll do another this week. I know I'm going to run a draft on Just A Boatman in the next couple of days, maybe write it out again in longhand (a craft which I feel I need to be doing more of).

I had to write a cover/query/pitch letter for my Advanced Fiction class about the full movement we're turning in today. It's chapter two of the currently stalled Jack novel. It was interesting spelling out exactly what I had in mind for it, and I feel like I've got a good grip on it.

Now I'm going to dive back into the Rider's story while i'm at work. Tally-ho!

Wikipedia Is Swallowing My Soul

Found this article on the front page of Wikipedia. All you need to do is read the first couple sentences of the Politics section. There has to be story potential there. Could probably fit it into my story about Myland.

I got "I'm Just A Boatman" back from my fantasy teacher, Tina Jens. She really liked it and offered me a stack of suggestions about how to make it better. Most of it were minor logistical issues that I cleared up, one was a major issue I'm hoping she can get a chance to look at again about structure. I'll probably run a further line edit on draft 2 tomorrow once its had time to settle. I'm really happy this story went over so well.

30 days till the semester is done.

A Nice Follow Through

I wrote an entire story in just over one sitting.

It's called "I'm Just A Boatman" and it's about Charon, the ferryman who takes the dead across the river Styx to Hades. He has a Cockney accent. It's fun. And it was really nice to get something so fully realized and torn out so quickly.

Working on large projects can be daunting because you want nothing more than that satisfying follow through, but it's always elusive, so far in the distance that all you can do is chip away and hope.

Finishing this so quickly gives me hoe and that satisfaction of knowing that I'm really getting something done. I sent it off to my teacher, Tina Jens, and my mentor, Mort Castle, to have them take a look at it, see if it is as good as I think, or if I'm just being pretentious.

I started it as a class exercise. Tina brought in a pile of random reference books about fantasy. Said, find an article and write a story about it. And I got the first two pages hammered out in class, and the rest just worked on it throughout yesterday and finished it this morning while I was sitting on the reference desk. Maybe I can have it ready to go in a couple weeks and start shopping it around.

Now I'm off to get Pho with my roommate and some of his friends.

Webistes To Check Out

This is just a placeholder for websites for me to explore in more detail.

http://freeculture.org/
http://www.jonathanlethem.com (he hasn't updated his tour schedule in over a year, but his Promiscuous Materials Project looks interesting)

Keywords to keep searching:
Hardboiled, Noir, Pulp, Crime Fiction, Archetypes/Tropes/Cliches of those previous words, Humphrey Bogart Films

Basically in a nutshell I'm beginning to do some research for what I'm thinking is going to be my next novel once I finish the rider's first story. I started working on a couple period pieces set during the 20s and 30s in the vein of pulp and hardboiled, and they were unrelated and I got to thinking that maybe I should cut them together. And in my journal it's grown to a cast of like a dozen characters all representing diferent archetypes of those genres. It draws from the storytelling structure of Stephen King's "The Stand" with each chapter taking a different character as its centerpiece and following as they slowly roll together.

I'm thinking of titling the story "7 Days In Paradise." I'm having my friend, Anna, who is a visual arts major and was playing with map design early this semester (or was it last fall? I can't remember) and I'm thinking of wooing her to design for me the city of Paradise, giving me a large playground to play in.

I'm also starting to do some reading on the subject to create a wide basis on the topic. I'm starting with Raymond Chandler's "The Long Goodbye"

I didn't get to do any writing on the rider last night. Instead I made a beasty fried rice with what few ingredients were laying around the house and I pretended to do homework.

Holy Word Count Batman!!!

I think it's safe to call today a victory.

After spending a majority of the day sitting around wondering what I should be doing, and then going to Clarke's for pancakes and omelets (Oh my, you should eat!). I came home and on a whim of inspiration, after dinking around for some time, decided that I should write.

Now here I am, 6 hours later. A fresh 5,000+ words added and another 4,000 previously written and then spliced in today, I'm teetering right near the 200 page mark. I'm within 100 words of breaking 40,000 words, and if my brain wasn't a nice shade of crispy brown I would add them in.

Now I'm waiting for my roommate to call me back and come celebrate my evening of awesome productivity with a nice tall pint of crisp wonderful beer.

Too bad not a single word of this counts towards any homework, so I am now a day further behind on what I was supposed to be doing... Oh well.

When It's Good, It's GOOD

Chapter 4 is done!

It's absolute shit. But I know where I want it to go, and sometimes just the catharsis of getting it down on paper is enough.

I'm getting a slow start into chapter 5. I'm doing a lot of figuring out who Mother is. Roger Gans, detective for the FBI. I don't know a whole lot about him, just that he's a skeptic and I'm going to be inhabiting his head. Sounds good. He could be fun, and his introduction is a great and jarring switch from Jack running off into the woods. We'll see where that goes.

Like I said: Chapter 4 is shit shit shit. I don't like what Jack's found, it's maybe a little too obvious. I mean it needs to be obvious (the map and key) enough to get the ball rolling, but my selection of objects may be a little too obvious. The action really started picking up, and as he is cleaning out the cabin of the Giant of useful supplies I really liked the movement and pacing in that. I also need to get out how the giant seems to fluctuate in size, and swell bigger with anger, so that when Jack opens the door and steps outside BAM! he is shocked to look up and up and up and into the eyes of Cormoran, mighty Cormoran. And then I've got to get Silvanus, the green man out there a little sooner.

Anywhoo that is all inside shit that probably won't mean much of anything to anyone.

I've got a stack of American Folklore books I'm going to read and commit to memory over spring break, because I feel like a greater base knowledge of American Folklore will do nothing but inform the story to details it should be noticing and will hopefully get on the page when I make the transfer over from a finished long-hand copy to a typed copy.

Those books include:

Shingling the Fog and Other Plains Lies by Roger Welsch
Donegal Fairy Stories by Seumas MacManus
A Treasury of American Folklore by Terri Hardin
Grandfather Tales by Richard Chase

and anything else along the way that I discover as I'm trying not to spend money on books

We're Centenarians!

Chapter 3 is done. Chapter 4 version two is already underway. I feel like I've managed to reposition the story onto the track and now I'm gonna let it take off again and see where it goes.

I didn't do any homework. Yeah... I'm that guy. I have senioritis bad.

Oh, by the way, happy hundredth post!

Holiday Break, Day IV

Writing was absolute shit tonight.

It's the first time I've put pen to the page, or fingers to the keyboard in this case, in like three weeks. Everything is feeling truncated and abridged. I'm hoping the mere act of starting will be enough to get the ball rolling again. If this is what it's going to be like over the next month or so, than it's going to be a long long slog to the finish line. But reaching the finish line is what's important. For a first novel I can definitely do some serious editing and re-editing.

I only got about a thousand words and everything felt flat. I want to watch noir murder mysteries to get inspired, but I'm afraid that if I do than I'm going to be just rehashing what was already done.


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We got hit with a nice blizzard last night. Not as bad as what you'd imagine a blizzard to be, but at least I'm going to be getting my white christmas! There are about 6-8 inches on the ground, hopefully more is on it's way this week. My dad got out and used his snow blower. I was hoping he'd let me shovel. I need the exercise.

I took my dog for a walk today, and she enjoyed the cold weather. We'd bound through the unshoveled sidewalks and she would grin and then bury her head in the drifts, bringing it up again covered in white.

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I saw a cart in a parking lot on Friday that said "Do not Oogle someone else's cart."

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I'm still waiting to hear if my friend can go to my cottage for the week to be all writerly. If he can't than I'll probably head back to Chicago earlier. We'll see.