Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: Writer’s Life
Thirteen books
Launching into this, I have no idea whether I have thirteen books in me. If I come up short, y’all are going to have to suggest a few.
Here goes nothing.
A not-so-short story for you
I published “All Change” about a year ago in Continuum Science Fiction — never really liked the new title the editor gave it (“The Gorjun is Free”), but then, “All Change” kinda sucks, too.
Here’s the story. It’s a bit under 5K words . . . not exactly a quickie, but some folks like longer tales.
There’s a bit of history to this one. I’ve long been a fan of Robert Silverberg’s Beyond Control, a collection which included contributions from Silverberg, Asimov, Bester, Carr, Dick, and Blish. If you can find it, buy it. When I wrote “All Change”, I wanted to capture the same all-hell-breaking-loose atmosphere of those stories.
This is also the story that a Certain Someone over at Writer’s BBS thought would be great as a screenplay. He knew how to write screenplays and I didn’t, so we decided to collaborate. One month later, Certain Someone and I were no longer on speaking terms, and my muse froze me out for weeks.
Enough of that. I have something else in store for you tonight.
D.
A taste for human flesh
Can’t remember how we got onto the topic, but this morning I told Michelle about my short story, “Sex and the Single Wendigo,” and she asked me to post it. Here you go.
Despite the title of this post, this is NOT a disgusting, gory story. Much. It’s funny. No, really, it is.
Let me know what you think.
D.
Don’t speak too soon
Before I get started: L’shanah tovah! That’s Happy New Year for you goyim. Today is Rosh Hashanah, which I’m Jewish enough to know about but not Jewish enough to celebrate. Unless watching Hebrew Crunk on YouTube counts as observation of this High Holy Day.
***
Can’t remember whose blog I commented on . . . but the issue of the hour was, how do you find the time to write? How do you manage to finish what you start?
Stubbornness, I replied.
Usually, after doing the day’s chores, I sit down and write. But today I feel meh. I’ve done two loads of laundry, washed the car, cleaned a mess in the garage, cleaned the kitchen, and organized the computer corner of our bedroom (doesn’t sound like it, but that was the most time-consuming task of all). And now I have to whip myself into writing mode.
Meh, meh, meh. Meh at every level of my life. Not entirely unrelated: I’ve added a new category to my blogroll, Escape Hatch, with a link to the blog We Move to Canada. No matter what I do in my local party, no matter how many petitions I sign, I can’t get away from a sense of responsibility for the atrocities our government has committed and has continued to commit in our names. If the Democrats fumble the ball in the next two elections, or if the Republicans steal the elections, I’m outa here.
Sorry to be such a downer. One of the reasons I don’t write as many political posts anymore is my depression with respect to the State of this Union. Karen feels the same way, and in fact, stopped watching The Daily Show and Colbert Report because they only made her more depressed.
***
More live-blogging tonight? I’ll try to be on by 8 PM PST, earlier if possible. And I’ll try to shake this funk by then.
D.
The last dough you’ll ever knead
This dough is amazing.
When I made bagels, I reserved half the dough and kept it in the fridge overnight. The next day, I used half the remaining ball to make a focaccia, and two days later, I divided the remaining quarter in thirds and made pita bread.
The bagels, as you know, rawked. The focaccia compared well with this recipe (that old one is an easier recipe, but bear in mind, THIS recipe makes bagels, pita, and focaccia). And the pita? Well, it worked far better than any previous pita recipe I’ve used. They puffed up! They had pockets!
I suspect you could use this for pizza, too, but since it puffs so well (see: pita), you would need to make lots of fork pock-marks all over the dough. Hmm. What else could it do? Breadsticks, dinner rolls . . . you name it.
Here da dough, cribbed from da best baking book, Baking with Julia:
SBD: SDB (So Does Brad)
Smart Bitches Day today, droogs, and I’ve been remiss of late. Call it failure of imagination, call it failure of the normal sleep/wake cycle, but I haven’t had a single bright shiny SBD thought in weeks.
However.
While editing yesterday morning, I listened to a netcast of one of my favorite radio stations, KFJC, and the DJ played “Time Warp” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and my SBD theme came to me in a flash of inspiration:
Loss of innocence.
I know what you’re thinking. “Walnut, you nailed the loss of innocence theme over a year ago, didn’t you?” Or you would be thinking that if you had read my blog as compulsively as I’ve written it.
Still, I might have another miniscule thing or two to say on the subject.
Loss of innocence is such an emotion-laden subject, it surprises me it isn’t tapped more often for fiction and film. It especially surprises me that I haven’t milked it for the novel I recently finished. Here I am writing about two twenty-something-year-old virgins who finally give up that one last trapping of childhood, and I haven’t even scratched the surface.
My problem is, I’ve approached this story as a romantic comedy, and I’ve consciously tried to downplay most of the serious bits. When I first began writing it, I was burnt out by writing my trilogy/tragedy, and my muse wanted cotton candy. That’s my excuse, anyway.
Loss of innocence is a serious bit. I can’t mine humor from something so inherently sad — nor, I suspect, can anyone else. Case in point, any teen sex comedy (including, yes, American Pie). Puerile is not funny.
Although I do dig the band camp girl.
Alyson Hannigan. Mmmm. Guys and girl-lovin’ gals, google that name with SafeSearch OFF. You won’t be sorry. But I digress.
In editing this novel, I feel a strong urge to address this topic. There has to be a reason why these two have held onto their virginity for so long, right? Something beyond, “Oh, we were too busy to have intimate relationships.” A better reason than that. And there should be some emotional cost to finally kissing it (literally) all goodbye.
I worry a bit that any such attempt on my part will kill the comic buzz, but on the other hand, I trust my muse. I think she has a much different ending in mind, and I for one am looking forward to reading it.
D.
Zoning
Who needs drugs? It’s easy. Get less than four hours of sleep, wake up at 6:30, go into the hospital, have one of those days in which nothing but nothing goes the way you expect it to go, work straight through until 5:30, and then come home to a family who expects you to cook for them.
Hah. Ain’t gonna happen.
***
Don’t forget: live blogging this weekend with mad libs. But mad libs do not create themselves out of thin air, folks. If you think you can make a live blog chat at 7PM Pacific Time this Saturday, send me a 100-200 word scene and I’ll Mad Lib-ify it. Others will supply their slew of adjectives and proper nouns, and I’ll read the results out loud for the chat.
That email addie again: azureus at
harborside dot
com
***
Soon: as a followup to last week’s Thursday Thirteen (Thirteen Patients), tomorrow I’ll write about Thirteen Doctors. Subtitle:
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
***
Thanks to my betas who have responded to the most recent email. Yes, I know the ending sucks. Or doesn’t suck enough. Or doesn’t have enough sucking. Something like that. Rest assured, by the time I finish this first edit, everyone should leave the scene satisfied.
D.
The true meaning of slash
I suppose I have a few readers who aren’t Smart Bitches . . . not many, it’s true, but a few. This link is for you:
Candy showcases a YouTube vid of Spock & Kirk TOST bits set to the tune of Nine Inch Nails’ Closer. ‘Nuff said.
From the comments, I found Sarah‘s remarks interesting:
The original meaning of Slash fiction was the “/†between “K†and “S†as in K/S or Kirk/Spock. The very first slash fan fiction was written about these two. So, yeah, makes absolutely sense.
Not that I didn’t believe Sarah, but I had to check. And, guess what? She’s right.
What’s your favorite slash? Just the other day, I read some Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter figging slash . . . but Draco was at the receiving end. So out of character.
D.
Mad Libs LIVE
Michelle gave me a great suggestion. For the next live blog session, willing participants should email me a snip from their works-in-progress. Nothing too big, perhaps 100 to 200 words. I will Mad Lib-ify them and email them out to other would-be participants. Email me back your responses. When we get together for live blogging, I’ll read the results.
Let me know if I need to explain Mad Libs. Wait, here’s a link.
Back to editing. Sorry this place ain’t more lively.
Oh, you may need my email addy:
azureus
at harborside
dot
com
We’ll shoot for next Saturday night at 7 PST. And no, you don’t have to play to show up at the live blog session.
D.