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Last night after work, last night before bed, and this morning before work, I added a total of 1137 more words to the anthology story, which now stands at 3556 words. First draft should be ready no later than Friday.
I'm still trying to zero in on a title, and I've got one in mind, I'm just not sure if I can use it. The editor said we can't use song lyrics in the story without written permission, and the title I want to use is three words from the song the story was inpsired by. Not sure if that counts, so I'm gonna check with him, probably when I send it to him.
And what was the song that inspired my anthology entry?
A  and a 
And an awesome song it is.
Life's Little Destruction Book: "Help fools part with their money."
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646 words this morning brings the anthology story, still untitled, to 2419. Looking over the guidelines again this morning, I'm about 600 words away from the minimum word count, but I've got another 2 scenes to write, 3 at the very most, so I'm sure I'll have no trouble passing the 3000 word mark. And I certainly don't see the story topping the 5000 word limit. I'd like to say I'll have a first draft by the weekend.
I'm enjoying version 2 a lot better. As with most stories I get several thousand words into and abandon, it's not that there's a problem with what I've already written, it's just a gut feeling that this isn't "the story". So I have to step away from it, turn it over in my subconscious while I try to focus on other things, then, when the moment is right, it'll hit me and I can write the story the way it was meant to be. At least, that's how it usually works for me anyway.
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Life's Little Destruction Book: "Signal left; turn right."
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After ditching a handful of files yesterday, re-organizing my file cabinet, and reading the first 50 pages of FOUNDATION, I decided to work a little on that anthology story I mentioned a couple weeks back.
Instead of going back to what I'd done on it already, I just started over from the beginning, this time with more focus, and wrote 1270 words. It was pretty good, I like where it's going now. Definitely better than what I'd already done before, and once I copy and paste the original opening paragraph, because I like it a lot, I can delete the original version altogether.
I wanted to get to 2000 words this morning, but I did a pretty decent 503 at least, taking me to 1773. It took a few minutes and a false start to get going today, but I hit my groove--then had to stop so I could get ready for work. I'd love to say I'll work on it some more after work, but I'm not promising anything just yet. Most likely I'll fall asleep.
Finally, Life's Little Destruction Book: "Post-date all your checks."
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It's August 1st. And my reading for last month was pathetic.
1) Open Graves
2) The Invention of Hugo Cabret
That's it. I did read 103 pages of the Edward Abbey book, but after 2 weeks and only 103 pages, I said forget it. Yesterday I read my last story in the Robert Aickman collection, then realized I still had almost half the book to go, after 2 weeks, again, and that it and all the other books I checked out were long overdue, so I gave in and took them all back. I'm hoping my reading is back on track in August. Today I hope to start
For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. Only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future--a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire--both scientists and scolars--and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.
But soon the fledgling Foundation finds itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords, rising in the wake of the receding Empire. And mankind's last best hope is faced with an agonizing choice: submit to the barbarians and live as slaves--or take a stand for freedom and risk total destruction.
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Today's movie was crap. Unearthed. But here are some screenshots nonetheless.
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I think "Baby Pink Lipstick"s problem may have been solved. I need to print it, then sit down and read it straight through--easier to do with a hardcopy, I find myself skipping ahead if I read it onscreen--to make sure it's all there, snug, and in order, but for now, I think I may have it.
Cleaned off my desk this morning. Actually, I've been doing it off and on for the last 3 days. Next up is my file cabinet. That's gonna be a chore. I can't believe how many copies of stories I threw away. I really do print every draft, no matter how small the change.
I also got 1 story ("The Fish in the Fields") and 1 novel (The Third Floor) submitted this morning. It's been a pretty busy and fulfilling today, so far, despite the fact I couldn't seem to drag myself out of bed.
And now a tip from Life's Little Destruction Book, copyright 1992, St. Martin's Press, which offers "512 boorish, insensitive and socially obnoxious pointers for leading a simple, self-centered life":
"Never tip more than a quarter."
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| You ever have a story that's awesome, that's great, that's everything you hoped it would be while you were writing it? And then you finish it and realize it's all good except one gigantic glaring logical flaw? That's where I am with "Baby Pink Lipstick" and it's really pissing me off. I thought for a moment yesterday at work that I figured it out, and I was really happy. Then I realized, for whatever reason, that wouldn't work. I wish now I could remember why. Anyway, so then I thought of another solution, then, again, realized that wouldn't work either because it would present the exact same problems I'm facing right now. So I'm stuck here, with this really good story I like a lot, and I'm 95% sure if I sent it out, almost no one would see the flaw that is, to me, so obvious. But I just can't do it until I get this one thing straightened out. Dammit.
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I made two passes at the vampire story yesterday, one before work, and another, more brutal one, last night during CHOPPED. I was so engrossed in the story, I missed most of what they were cooking, but at least the story's coming along okay. I cut over 200 words last night and tightened up a few scenes that really needed it. It needs a title, and I've still got about 150 or so words to cut, but I like it.
Getting this story into shape reminded me I've still got two more in this same stage that I haven't finished yet. I opened them both this morning and did a little to them. I think I finally decided "Hell's Engine" won't be called that. I realized it a few days ago. I was going back and forth in my mind between "Hell's Engine" and "Satanic Mechanic". SM is, I feel, a silly sort of title, but as the story is about the mechanic, and not necessarily the engine, I feel it's the more appropriate title, so I guess I'm sticking with "Satanic Mechanic". As for "Baby Pink Lipstick", the other story that's not quite ready yet, there are still a few logic problems with that one I need to work out.
I find this pattern a lot when it comes to actually finishing stories. I write a first draft, put it aside and work on something else, then sometimes forget I've got this other story over here that I haven't finished yet, and I just move on to the next story again. Sometimes they just get lost on my desk and I'll find them a month or two later and remember I haven't finished it yet. I really need to work on that.
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The vampire story is finished, at least in first draft. I wrote the final 2533 words yesterday, for a first draft total of 3542 words. I still can't believe I did so much on it; I only had a few things I wanted to get down before I lost them, and I just never stopped until I reached the end. It was a great feeling, even if I know parts of it are just more doomed words, but that's okay. It's much easier to clean up the mess when you've got the whole thing down and can see better where the pieces fit together, and what's extra. I want to make a pass or two through it, but I guess then I should let it rest. That also means I don't really have anything keeping me from working on the anthology story.
This week's movie was TOOTH AND NAIL. Nothing special, but not bad. Here's the pics:
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The vampire story reached 1009 words this morning. I know that's not much more than where I left it yesterday (173 words), but it was a goal. I wasn't even sure I was going to reach that measly number today as the scene I wrote is totally a bridging scene from one part of the story to the next, and I really don't like those scenes. But it had to be written. I don't like days like today where the only thing I can seem to get written is the bridge, because I know in my gut there's a 95% chance nothing I wrote today is going to stick around, that given a day or two to mull it over I'll see a much better way to connect these first two scenes, which kind of makes today a waste of time. So is it better to write pointless words you know are doomed while you're writing them just for the sake of saying you worked on it that day, or is it better just to leave it alone until the words are there?
I'm gonna say yes, it's better to add the doomed words, or at least to TRY. Some of the best writing I've done has been on the days I had to make myself sit down and work, and you never know, this could have been one of those days. It wasn't, but it could have been. And anyway, even if 95% of today's work goes in the trash tomorrow, that's still 5% that contributes to the story, right?
Anyway, it's early and I'm still figuring out the rules of this story and how to make them work, some doomed words are inevitable.
So, let's have some Bowie:
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Do the words count if you don't keep them? When considering the day's productivity, I think so. I wrote a pretty decent 200-300 word opening for the vampire story this morning, then deleted it and started over in an entirely different part of the story. "Start in the middle" my friend Swope always used to say, so that's what I did, and it worked. I got a pretty respectable 836 words of story, lots of stuff to help me figure out the main character and her place in the world, while setting up the entire story that follows. I'm pleased with it. But since, technically, I did write more words than just what I kept, I think it's safe to say I wrote over a thousand this morning. Even if only most of them apply.
Also, there's this, which I think is awesome:
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Well, I did it again; I stopped reading a book before I was finished. The Abbey, THE FOOL'S PROGRESS, while wonderfully written, was just too dense. After two weeks, I'd managed 107 pages and didn't see any end anywhere in sight. That book was 480-some pages and I just don't have the patience to devote two months to one book. So Saturday night I put it down and read a book my daughter had got from the library, THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET. It was excellent, and I finished it Sunday morning. Reviewed it, then I started reading the next of my library books:
Even after his death in 1981, Robert Aickman was admired for his "superb tales of suspenseful unease" (Publishers Weekly). But a great portion of his work was never collected or reprinted in the United States. Now, in THE WINE-DARK SEA, we have a large selection of his best fiction, presented for the first time in a single U.S. edition and substantially larger than either of the two earlier collections, COLD HAND IN MINE and PAINTED DEVILS, published during Aickman's lifetime.
THE WINE-DARK SEA is a landmark book by a superb stylist who characterized himself a writer of "strange" tales, whose fiction may be the most important body of work in the horror mode since Poe. There is a growing recognition of Aickman's importance as an anthologist and writer in recent years, both in England and America. Last year (cover copy written in 1982) his novel of the fantastic, THE MODEL, was published for the first time, to glowing reviews: THE WASHINGSTON POST BOOK WORLD called it a "consumate success," and Richard Grant said, "THE MODEL reads like a gift from some other, more magical literary tradition. it is astonishing, sometimes unsettling, and often awfully funny."
Upon reading Aickman's stories, one is reminded perhaps of Isak Dinesen, or J. Sheridan Le Fanu, or Henry James's supernatural tales. For we are surely in the hands of a subtle and eerie master. But his stories are not quaint and antiquarian--they are quite modern, although more often set in the country than the city, or in foreign lands or even suburbia. Strange things happen, all the more disturbing for our inability to perceive exactly what or how. Aickman was unsurpassed at presenting apparitions glimpsed only from the corner of the eye, or surmised by their effects. The atmosphere is classically and brilliantly done. But his mosnters are truly monstrous, and horrific effects chilling enough to make the reader shiver.
THE WINE-DARK SEA is one of the significant compilations of our time in the realm of the weird and fantastic.
I haven't touched the anthology story since last week, but I haven't given up on it. However, I am staring down the vampire story pretty hard. I've got the story in my head, the question now is how to start it. How to develop the plot enough to make it complete. How to tell it in a way that draws the reader in. I'm trying to figure out my main character and my situation and not make them cliche. I need a unique situation, but once I figure that part out, I think I've got a pretty cool story here. Hopefully I can get the opening figured out enough to get started writing it within the next day or two.
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Word count on the new anthology story was pitiful this morning, but better than expected. I sat for about 20 minutes just staring at the 10-word sentence I'd added, trying to decide how to go on from there. By the end of the morning's work, I had only managed 245 words, but that's still 245 more than I had when I woke up.
The problem with this story, I think, is that it was only motivated by this theme anthology. If I hadn't been invited, I'd have never come across this story, so while I think it's a good story and fits the theme pretty well, it's not my usual area. This isn't a speculative fiction anthology, and while I can write non-genre stuff, that's where my heart is and where my passion lies, in the horror and science fiction and fantasy stuff.
Back in 2003 I wrote maybe half a dozen stories for themed anthologies and I loved every one of them. The ideas may have been inspired by someone else's idea to put together an anthology, but the story was mine and, with the speculative backdrop, I felt I was free to go wherever I wanted with them. A few of them were some of the best work I've ever done. There's nothing in the guidelines for this one that says I CAN'T include some sci-fi craziness, but in the back of my head I think I'd have a better chance if I avoided it. Just makes writing the story a little more difficult because I don't feel I'm able to take this story, inspired by someone else's idea to put together an anthology, and really make it MINE, you know?
Plus it's friggin' first person, but that's entirely due to the nature of the anthology's theme.
Meanwhile, I'm still searching for the plot to the vampire story. Many ideas are coming to mind, but most of them come so easily, I'm trying to weed through them and figure out what came because it's a well-used cliche and what came because it's the plot.
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A few weeks ago I got an invite to a themed anthology, and since then I've been trying to find a story to write for it. My next story was supposed to be a vampire story, but like they say, "How do you make God laugh? Make a plan." So the next story is this anthology story instead. I finally started it last night, and with this morning's word count I'm at 1345 words.
I'm still not entirely sold on it, but hopefully in the end it'll all come together. I mean, I can tell already that, technically, it is meeting the anthology's criteria. Just not sure it's meeting mine, you know? It can be a good enough story, but that doesn't equal good enough for me. But I'm going to work as far through the first draft as I can--hopefully to the end--and see how it turns out.
I'm still trying to find the vampire story. I've got a very very basic germ of an idea, but so far there's no story there. Took a nap after work yesterday and, while I dozed off, tried to turn the idea over and over, hoping to find the plot. It'll come to me.
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Just before he died in 1989, Ed Abbey published what he called his "honest novel," one loosely based on his own life. Early in its opening pages, Abbey's alter ego, Lightcap, takes off from his nearly empty home (its contents just removed by a disgruntled spouse) in Tucson, Arizona--but not before shooting his refrigerator, a hated symbol of civilization. Lightcap makes a winding journey by car to his boyhood home in the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania, calling on old friends along the road, visiting Indian reservations and out-of-the-way bars, and reminiscing about the triumphs and follies of his life. Readers would be mistaken to view this as pure autobiography, but The Fool's Progress nonetheless is an illuminating look into Abbey's time and his way of thinking, especially on matters of ecology and other social issues. It's also a picaresque tale humorously and artfully told, a book that Abbey himself rightly regarded as one of his best works of fiction.
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Today I'll start reading
My story "Terrible Thrills" appears in it, and I've had it since it was published in 2004, but for a long time I've had trouble reading any anthology my work appears in. Not for nothing, but the first two or so I read weren't all that spectacular. In fact, one was such utter sht, I wound up re-submitting the story that appeared in it to a different anthology, just so I could, hopefully, be proud of somewhere it had appeared. That story was "Terrible Thrills". I have no doubt, this collection will prove to be a much better one than the first place this story appeared.
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Sergei Kravinoff. Wow. Sometimes that’s all there is to say.
Kraven the Hunter always fancied himself the greatest hunter in the world. To prove this, he decided he needed to take down Spider-Man. Which he did, in a very awesome story, which saw Spider-Man buried alive while Kraven took his place in order to show he was the better man. Spider-Man eventually clawed his way out of the grave and the story ended with Kraven proving himself the better hunter, the better Spider-Man, and, with his soul at peace, killing himself. But while he was living, he did so in style:
Lion’s head vest, cheetah print tights, ballet slippers.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Oh, and the zebra belt and arm bands.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Come on, do we even need to discuss this one? Kraven’s a professional big game hunter, and I can just see him deep in the jungle, waiting for the chance to strike.
His prey is lumbering along, oblivious, munching leaves or stalking prey of its own. All is as nature intended, and then Kraven attacks. Kraven eschews guns and bows, wants to take down his prey with his bare hands--and the help of some tranquilizers--and the battle is fierce as neither combatant wants to relent, but finally the fittest survives and out comes Kraven who is the very picture of manliness and not the least bit . . . fancy.
Myself, I’m having a hard time believing Kraven the Hunter was as formidable a foe as he was. Surely anyone who’s tooling around town looking like this is bound to get a beating on a regular basis. Sure, Kraven’s taken down lions (obviously) and cheetahs (again, obviously) and Mikhail Baryshnikov (again, obviously), but if someone is dressed like this, wandering the streets of New York City, I can’t see them lasting long, no matter how tough they are. It’s just not possible.
I like the idea of Kraven, even if it’s not too original. How many “ultimate big game hunters” does fiction needs? But he was a dangerous foe for the web-slinger, and he did it without any super-powers, so you have to respect that. But, dude, the lion vest is bad enough, did you have to wear ballet slippers? And even in a comic book world where tights are a semi-common sight, did they have to be cheetah??? If Kraven desperately HAD to rock the tights, I’m thinking a solid would have been the way to go, something darker, less . . . revealing. Or less stupid.
I’m all for dressing the part, but holy sht. When I think of big game hunters, I think of this:
But when I think of Kraven, I think of this:
This one has epic fail written all over it. Hell, maybe it wasn’t the completion of his life’s mission that made him end it all. Maybe he finally caught a glimpse of himself and knew death was the only way to go out with some dignity!
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I have done no writing this week, and don't expect to. But I've done quite a bit of submitting, at least a story a day all week. I'd forgotten how time-consuming that can be, hunting up suitable markets, then making sure the manuscript meets their guidelines. Seems every magazine has a different set of instructions on how they want your manuscript to look. Whatever happened to standard format? Anyway...
It's July 1st. So what did I read last month? Not a whole lot, unfortunately.
Stephen King’s N. (#1-4)
The Dream Master, by Roger Zelazny
Not even halfway through My Name is Legion, so that's not going to count until next month.
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Today's movie is LAKE DEAD, which isn't good. And there were only 4 screenshots on the After Dark website. Figures; the movie was crap. Anyway, here they are:
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We examine a lot of super hero costumes here, but there’s another breed of character out there who wears the anti-super hero costume: the business suit. It’s actually more common than you’d think. The Question wears a business suit with a blank face as a mask. Two-Face wears a suit. Christopher Chance, the Human Target wears a suit. Okay, so he’s a bodyguard/private detective and not a “super hero”. The suit-wearer I never fully understood, however, was Wesley Dodds, AKA The Sandman (not to be confused with Dream, AKA The Sandman).
Dodds was a hero in the 1940s who operated out of New York City. He wore a suit and hat with a gas mask over his face, because he carried a gas gun that put his opponents to sleep. Sometimes pictured with a cape--which doesn’t go with the suit at all--I read the Vertigo series SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE for a few years, but don’t remember a cape. Instead, the version I’m familiar with wore a trench coat, which makes a whole lot more sense. His solo adventures were many before he joined the Justice Society of America, and as a character, he’s one of my favorites.
I just can’t accept his costume:
See, I like the suit and coat, even the hat. Lots of folks do good deeds wearing the same thing. The mask, for me, puts it over the edge. I understand, it’s functional and all, but it’s still silly. It doesn’t scream “Here I come to save the day!”
I don’t really have a lot to say about Wesley and his suit--and his mask--other than to point them out and mention this is not the way to do a super hero costume. What kind of lazy slob of an artist came up with that? And what if he’s called on in the middle of the day to help someone? You can’t very well be walking down the street in a suit, get the call, throw a mask over your face and not have at least one bystander say, “Hey, isn’t that the suit that guy with the briefcase was wearing? Hmmm.” What’s the alternative? Spider-Man wears his costume under his clothes. Can Wesley Dodds do the same? A suit under a suit? That doesn’t seem very comfortable.
Can you imagine wearing this under another full set of clothes?
Yeah, neither can I.
There was a brief time when Dodds retired the three-piece and wore an actual super hero costume, but in my opinion, that wasn’t any more successful, only more expected:
(that kid with him is Sandy, the Golden Boy. Back in the day a sidekick was like theme music, every good hero should have one. I’ve always found the child sidekick to be, not only kinda creepy on its own, but also downright irresponsible.)
Like I said, I don’t have a lot of comment on this suit other than to say it’s not a super hero costume and it can’t be very functional in a real world situation where you never know when the danger might strike. It just doesn’t work. Real world, this is what’s coming after you:
Sure, it looks creepy and I certainly wouldn’t want to see that heading toward me down a dark alley after I’d swiped some broads purse, but, hell, he’s gonna have to get dressed first, and this get up does not look like something he can slip into at a moment’s notice. I think by the time he’s got the hat just right, the criminal’s gonna have had several hidey holes already picked out.
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