Balls and Walnuts
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Category Archives: Writer’s Life
Eating crow
A fellow named Laird Barron found one of my older and snarkier posts (Wonkaphilic Fan Fic, David Gerrold Kills Pound Puppies, &c., from May 20) and left this comment. The first bit is a quote from my blog, the second is his response.
“You might even say F&SF is the Rabbit Test of the spec fiction world, but of course you wouldn’t say it if you still harbored any hope of ever being published by F&SF, would you?”
Probably not. However, I think Gordon has enough class to separate the work from the author. Pity.
Sincerely,
Laird
I said this was one of my snarkier posts. Snarky may be too kind. My tone was petulant and whiny, and not particularly funny, so I can’t even use the excuse, “It’s only humor!” In ragging on the Rabbit Tests of the world, I contributed to the problem. In my defense, I really do find Fantasy & Science Fiction to be a frustrating magazine, and it’s not just because they won’t give me the time of day as a writer. I could have been a lot less pissy in expressing my opinion, however.
But let’s get back to Mr. Barron. It’s hard not to like this guy, or at least respect him. He zinged me with one word: Pity. And zinged me good. I thought about that all night.
I googled him, and have even more respect for the man. He has been published in Fantasy & Science Fiction, Sci Fiction, and other places. His story for Sci Fiction, Bulldozer, looks great, at least from the first few hundred words I’ve read thus far.
So, Mr. Barron, if you’re out there: yeah, I can take a hint. Consider me bitch-slapped. And good luck with your novel.
D.
Story link
In case any of my non-BBS readers want to see a bit of my SHORT fiction (875 words), here’s a link to my entry for Keith’s challenge. For a limited time only — I’ll delete it once the challenge is over.
The challenge: in 750 words or less*, show your protag going through a substantive change.
I have a massage scheduled for this afternoon. Yippee! I need it. Practically speaking, I’m checking out this practitioner before subjecting my son to her ministrations. It was the only way Jake would agree to it, after that disastrous foot massage experience.
Guess I’ll have to tough it out . . . . The things we do for our children.
D.
*See how well I follow directions?
Sex is Proactive
Getting back to Michelle‘s question:
. . . how about a post for female writers on what guys really
think/feel/do [during sex]?
28,000-year old multi-tasker
Thanks to Scott for pointing me towards this BBC News story about a 28,000 year old phallus:
Ah, the British. So in love with their puns; so proud of their wit. He said tool. Heh heh. Heh heh.
The author goes on to say that the “tool” may have been used as a sex aid, but “was also at times used for knapping flints,” according to Professor Nicholas Conard, who knows a thing or two about knapping flints. Or sex aids. I figure they must have talked to an expert, for God’s sake.
I’d never heard of “knapping flints,” but could figure it out from context. I pictured some Ice Age proto-person diddling herself/himself with it, getting bored, then turning it over to bang out a few flint arrowheads. Hell, it’s not like you can do that with the real thing.
I must have a tapeworm, or maybe I’m pregnant. So far tonight, I’ve had a buffalo burger (no bun), slice of red onion grilled on the barbie, and a romaine salad. That was my Atkins dinner. Still hungry, I had more than a few pretzels, a bowl of Tasty Bites Madras Lentils (Tasty Bites sounds like cat food, no?) garnished with red onion and Swiss cheese, a Girl Scout cookie, a few of my son’s Kit Kat bites (more cat food), and 9 Kalamata olives.
Did I mention the chili anchovies (from the Chinese market) and sardines for lunch?
If you haven’t figured it out yet, my muse has her head up her ass this evening. She pulled it out briefly this morning, allowing me to write this entry for the ‘Worst First Sentence’ contest at Writers BBS:
P— was a dashing sailor, strong of biceps and large of groin, keen for his spinach, a fellow of few words and fewer letters.
Okay, I’m pushing my luck.
D.
Sorry. On drugs at the moment.
This summer cold’s a bitch. Hacking cough won out over crushing fatigue last night, so I drugged up on Tylenol #3 (left over from my strangulated hernia operation two years ago) and Benadryl and still stayed up until 2:00. Karen forgot to set the alarm (yup — I can’t program a VCR, either), so I overslept and had no time to go a-bloggin’ this AM to check up on my e-friends. I feel like a heel. A heel with a cough.
But you learn toughness from residency. (For those of you not in the medical biz, residency = five or six years of indentured servitude, after which you may call yourself a specialist. In my case, a snot doc.) I didn’t pull all-nighters in the OR with Maisie Shindo (one of New York’s best doctors — go Maisie!) to wimp out over a stupid cold. Or, as we used to say at Big County, “You’re either in the hospital working, or you’re in the hospital as a patient. Either way, your butt better be here.”
And here I am.
I drew a blank on a topic, unfortunately. Best I can do is reminisce about my earliest memories of the Web. In 1994, Karen and I rented a house in Alhambra, California. We had two of the nicest landlords — a Jet Propulsion Laboratory rocket scientist (no kidding!) and his wife. That’s when I first remember truly surfing the Web — getting my ears wet, wiping out. My favorite website was Mirsky’s Worst of the Web.
Nowadays, if you google Mirsky, you’ll find (through mirsky.com) a tee-shirt vendor. With a bit more stick-to-it-iveness, you’ll find this site, where three latter day Mirskys pick their very Worst. However, this seems like a thin cover to sell stuff for something called outfitters.com.
I miss the old Mirsky. The Worst I remember Most was Slut Boy, a skanky young dude who had posted photos of himself in all his slutty glory. You’d feel cleaner just looking at him. Alas, Slut Boy is gone, too, although perhaps he’s still out there, lost in Net Space amongst all the other Slut Boys. But if you know what’s good for you, you won’t try googling for him. It’s a mean hard-fisting organ-piercing jungle out there.
Michelle writes:
. . . how about a post for female writers on what guys really
think/feel/do [during sex]?
Great question, Michelle. So great I’m going to save my answer until a day when my comic super-powers are at their zenith. For now, let me end with this teaser of a reply:
One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four, one thousand five, one thousand six . . .
D.
PS: Give poor Bare Rump a visit. Lately, she’s endured more than an extraterrestrial should have to bear, what with having to watch Martha Stewart and Keanu Reeves make out, then having to eat Martha and drive cross country with Keanu. And not even the real Keanu Reeves — some cheap wannabe. And now, to add insult to injury, the poor dear’s blog has only been getting three hits a day. Since one of those hits comes from me, that’s pathetic.
Bare Rump hates to be thought of as pathetic.
I’m DONE!
Working title: The Brakan Correspondent
Date I finished the first version of the outline: 4/27/03
Date I finished the first version of Chapter One: 6/16/03
Final word count: 301,280
A very public thanks to my wife Karen, my son Jacob, and my readers: Ben, Debi, Edwin, and Maureen. You too, Gabriele! Thank you all for your love and support.
The rest of you can read the blurb here.
D.
Hey, don’t be a girlie-man!
This weekend is the final push. One way or another, the novel ends tomorrow. I wrote 3400 words today (not a record, but close), and wept, or at least sniffled, through most of it.
But I cry easily, especially when I have a cold (and I do). As a kid, I remember weeping over a rerun of All in the Family, one of the episodes where Archie and the Meathead have some sort of rapprochement. That I can understand; crying over commercials still baffles me.
There came a time towards the end of my grad student days when my boss, Larry Kedes, insisted I do one last S1-mapping experiment before he’d let me defend my thesis. Hey, here he is right now!
Doesn’t he look like a nice man? Well, I didn’t think so at the time. Larry had just left Stanford for USC, so I had to spend winter break down in Los Angeles to get one stinking experiment done. That was the longest Karen and I had ever been apart — oh, boo-hoo-hoo, enough already. Point is, I got the work done, and when I developed the autoradiograph and saw that pretty black smear right where it was supposed to be, I called Karen and cried over the phone.
To me, it made perfect sense to cry. This little black band meant that the last seven years were drawing to a successful close. I’d get the damned PhD, for whatever that was worth (not much, as it turned out). I could say to myself: You didn’t give up. You stuck with it. You made it work.
For someone with self image problems, this was a big deal.
As the title of this piece suggests, Karen’s reaction was — well, let me be polite and use the word ‘incredulous’. I think the comments, “What’s the matter with you?” and “You’re crying over that?” came up a few times. Growing up, my wife emulated Mr. Spock. What else is there to say?
None of this bothers me anymore. The way I look at it, I have two good reasons to cry over this novel. One, it has taken me over two years to write it, and I feel like I’ve accomplished something. Two, the ending is sad, and I feel like a total heel doing this to my characters.
Okay. Think I’ll go bawl my eyes out over a Britney Spears video.
D.
On Developing Character Depth
Here’s a mini-article by writer-editor Lon Prater. Excerpt:
For me, the biggest ways to bring depth to characters are contrast, contradiction, and conflict. They are exponentially more powerful methods than just coming up with a collection of likes/dislikes/habits/tics and having people talk about your character.
I agree fully. In the comments, I made the point that building empathy for the character is also important, and that it’s possible to have a well-rounded character for whom the reader feels nothing.
Lon’s article is short, sweet, and to the point. Check it out.
D.
The horehound! The horehound!
From Likely Stories, enter the dark world of CHOCOLYPSE NOW.
Have I ranted here about autistic fiction? That’s when your story means the world to you and nothing to anyone else. Phrased differently, you have an audience of 1.
I’ve written the stuff. Be honest — so have you.
D.
Sex and the Single Wendigo
(Note added later: Dark Krypt doesn’t have an archive, so I’m afraid you can’t read it online. Now that I look at it, I see the need for yet another rewrite. I really have to stop doing that.)
One of my favorite comic pieces is up at the Dark Krypt: “Sex and the Single Wendigo”. What can be better than a sexy Carry Bradshaw-like heroine with a taste for men? And I mean a taste. Get it? (Wink wink, nudge nudge.)
Here’s a teaser. Trelyn and her latest victim Klaus are lunching with Trelyn’s girlfriends.
“Besides,” said Trelyn, “Klaus here has the imagination of a shrub, don’t you, darling?”
Klaus smiled dreamily, working his hand up to Trelyn’s shoulder.
Trelyn arched her eyebrows and whispered, “Watch.” She gazed into Klaus’s baby blues and said, “Gorgeous, in my West Side penthouse, the bed has rubber sheets. What do you think of that?”
At the word bed, his hand dropped reflexively to Trelyn’s ass. He gave her a squeeze, saying, “Whatever you like, Babe.”
“See?” Trelyn said. To Klaus: “Come along, darling. We’ll eat at my place.”
“Pig,” Noshmi said, once Trelyn had left with her Norse god. “Do you know she had a Jets linebacker all to herself last week? Three hundred plus pounds, and she never even offered to share.”
Warning: something got messed up in transit to the Krypt, and there are a lot of typos in which the opening quotation mark has been replaced by an A. Very annoying. I’ll email the editor, and we’ll see what happens.
D.