[personal] Updatery of various sorts, mostly travel and writing
Finished going through the Pinion copy edit last night. Whew, that was hard. Need to write a cover letter, and dip back into manuscript to propagate one more set of minor changes. My schedule the next few days is not conducive to a relaxed approach to these activities, and it’s due, in New York, early next week. When I have time I’ll try to post an overview of this round of my experience with the magical land of copy editing. I always learn something new.
In other news, several modest but groovy things happening in the wide world o’ publishing deals. Reports as events develop sufficiently to become public knowledge, but it’s been a good week in that respect.
has her summer music camp recital today. Shortly after that arrives once more, and she and I are off to Seattle for various socializing type events, plus the Grants Pass reading and signing this Saturday afternoon, with open dinner to follow. Come on down!
Then Sunday we hie back to Portland for the wedding of and . Monday morning lights out for San Francisco once more, and I head toward points Omahan.
See some, all or none of you around these various popsicle stands.
Tags: Books, Calendula, Child, Omaha, Personal, Pinion, Process, Publishing, Seattle, Travel
Posted: 4:25 am Fri August 21 2009 | Comments(0) |
[photos] Your Friday moment of zen
Your Friday moment of zen.
, photographed by me in 2006 here in Portland, OR.
Tags: Child, Photos, Portland, zen
Posted: 4:18 am Fri August 21 2009 | Comments(0) |
[conventions] (repost) Book signing 08/22, in Redmond, WA; open dinner to follow
Reposted
Come see and me at a reading and book signing party tomorrow, Saturday, August 22, from 2 to 4 pm for the Grants Pass anthology! We both have stories in this fine volume, which is a clever and dark postapocalyptic anthology with a very cool premise. Authors scheduled are: Jennifer Brozek, Jay Lake, Seanan McGuire, Shannon Page and James M. Sullivan.
Saturday, August 22nd, 2 to 4 pm
Soulfood Books and Cafe
15748 Redmond Way
Redmond, Washington
Dinner to follow at 4:30 pm at Canyons in the Redmond Center – walking distance from Soulfoods. Booths across from the table for spill overs.
Canyons
Redmond Center
15740 Redmond Way
Redmond WA 98052
Phone: 425-556-1390
Come and hang out!
Tags: Books, Calendula, Conventions, Seattle
Posted: 4:11 am Fri August 21 2009 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad has a busy Friday
My short story “Skinhorse Goes to Mars” is live at Escape Pod — I’m quite enamored of their content rating.
Last Drink Bird Head comes to town — A cool flash collection, with many fine authors including my own self.
A question of freedom — Ta-Nehisi Coates on R. Dwayne Betts’ very difficult path to writing. How hard have you worked to be a writer?
Pension Office: 1918 — Wish my personal library looked like that.
This Day in Actual Communist and Real Nazi History — In case, you know, you think liberals are Communists and/or Nazis. From The Edge of the American West.
The more things change — Tom Tomorrow with a link to an editorial expressing skepticism about the need for the president’s proposed health care reform, and confidence that capitalism and American ingenuity will eventually take care of any problems our health care system might have. From 1949. Yep, that worked out well.
An Officer’s Experience in Our Christian Military — Think carefully about this one. Especially if you are conservative or a Christian.
?otD: Huh?
8/21/2009
Body movement: 10 minutes of stretching and meditation, 30 minutes on stationary bike
This morning’s weigh-in: 227.0
Currently reading:
The Real Wizard of Oz by Rebecca Loncraine
Tags: audio, Books, Links, Personal, Photos, podcasts, Politics, Publishing, stories, Writing
Posted: 4:09 am Fri August 21 2009 | Comments(2) |
[travel|polls] How far have you travelled from your birthplace?
I’ve put up a new poll here.
When I was about nine, we were in the Washington, DC area on home leave. Mom and Dad took me to see the pediatrician, who shared a clinic with other doctors. Me, the kid who’d been born in Taiwan, and already lived there, Canada, Dahomey, Texas and DC, got to talking to an adult who told me he’d never in his life been more than forty miles from where he was born, right there in Northern Virginia.
That struck me as very bizarre. I had trouble imagining a life so limited, in fact. I’ve long since realized that my reaction did the gentleman a profound disservice — travel was my norm, and therefore my bias — but still, how strange.
In this spirit, I present a poll on how far you’ve gone from where you were born. Note multiple answers can be selected … I’m curious what the curve will look like. Feel free to comment on your childhood or adult travels and relocations, as well.
Tags: Personal, Polls, Travel
Posted: 4:50 am Thu August 20 2009 | Comments(2) |
[polls] How far have you travelled from your birthplace?
Per the posts here and here, I present a poll on how far you’ve gone from where you were born. Note multiple answers can be selected … I’m curious what the curve will look like. Feel free to comment on your childhood or adult travels and relocations, as well.
Loading ...
Tags: Personal, Polls, Travel
Posted: 4:47 am Thu August 20 2009 | Comments(32) |
[photos] Your Thursday moment of zen
Your Thursday moment of zen.
Bees, photographed by me in Portland, OR.
Tags: Photos, zen
Posted: 4:38 am Thu August 20 2009 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad loves the warm smell of colitas
Stomping on Yeti interviews me
Reverse storyboarding — Art Writing guru James Gurney on how an artist watches movies. Writers: ever outlined a book or short story while you were reading it, to see how it was done?
on “Why the Geeks Get the Girls” — Hilarious takedown of a New Scientist squib.
Samurai underwear — For when you need to be even mightier. (Thanks to .)
Square Circle Spiral — Bad Astronomy Blog with a very cool optical illusion.
Amino acid detected in comet debris — Life, but not as we know it, from Centauri Dreams.
Recreating the Big Bang Inside Metamaterials — A formal mathematical analogy between the way metamaterials and spacetime effect light could allow scientists to recreate Big Bang-type events in the lab. What could possibly go wrong?
Gay scientists isolate Christian gene — An important development in bringing relief to millions! Snerk. (Thanks to .)
A deeper look at the birthers — This not a movement grounded in facts. Or information. Or reality.
The monolexical man on the street — Conservative “debate” at its finest. Confidential to conservative America: “Nazi”, “socialist”, “fascist”, and “Communist” are not mutually synonymous, and in fact have specific historical and contemporary meanings beyond “liberal with whom I disagree”. Millions of war dead would be quite surprised to hear of your current usage.
I heart Joseph Farah — A hilarious example of the utter lack of self-awareness in the discourse of the American Right.
When protest becomes intimidation — More on guns at political events. It’s flatly disingenuous to look at this stuff as an ordinary exercise of Constitutional rights. When was the last time you saw weapons openly at a Bush event? Or any previous presidency in modern memory?
?otD: Where did the question of the day go?
8/20/2009
Body movement: 10 minutes of stretching and meditation, 30 minutes on stationary bike
This morning’s weigh-in: 225.6
Currently reading:
The Real Wizard of Oz by Rebecca Loncraine;
Pinion by Jay Lake
Tags: Culture, Funny, gay, interviews, Links, Personal, Politics, Process, Religion, Science, Videos, Writing
Posted: 4:36 am Thu August 20 2009 | Comments(2) |
[personal] On being political and being a writer
A funny thing happens on my Twitter feed. I gain two dozen or more followers a day, and lose about half of them almost immediately. I suspect roughly the same ratio holds true on my blog readership, though the tracking is less obvious to me. Though it’s possible some people don’t care for my writing, or my humor, or my looks (as Nick Cave said, I’m sorry, but there ain’t much I can do about that), I’ll bet dollars to donuts that most of my unfollowers are reacting to my strong political stance.
When I began writer blogging in earnest, about seven or eight years ago, I was conscientiously apolitical in my public persona. I’d been experimenting with protoblogging as far back as 1998 or so, but that was before my writerly identity had emerged, so basically I was a dude with a Web site complaining about politics. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. (And yes, the astute reader will note that I have, in effect, come full circle.)
As a new-writer-who-blogged, I was very concerned with not offending readers and fans. I generally don’t write explicitly political fiction, unlike, say, . I felt like it was important to present an amiable, neutral persona that could appeal to a wide spectrum of readers.
Basically, I wanted to be mayonnaise.
This lasted a few years. Over that time, several problems with this position made themselves known to me.
First of all, although I don’t write explicitly political fiction, everything I write has a stance. It’s very rare for me to be morally neutral on cultural and social themes. Sometimes I write contra my own beliefs — the theology of Mainspring certainly doesn’t reflect my perspective on the relationship between God and His creation, for example — but there’s always some position being taken, usually a strong one. Not didactically so, for I despise didactic fiction, but simply arising organically from my own sense that strong convictions are essential to becoming a fully engaged moral and social being, whether one is a fictional character or a walking, talking person.
In other words, my fiction is rarely neutral, whether or not a given piece aligns with my views.
Second, I am a political animal. I actively engage with the world on a political level, on a level of principles, and I spend a fair amount of time thinking about such things. Denying my political sense was akin to denying my sense of myself as a dad, as a foodie, as a writer. It bothered me.
Third, I realized that the fiction(ish) blogs I admire most are unafraid of taking strong positions. , , Making Light. None of them suffer from a lack of readership, no one’s career seems damaged by being overt about their convictions and opinions.
I was mayonnaise, they were strong spices. Not to everyone’s taste, but far more interesting and engaging.
So I stopped being mayonnaise.
Was this a good career move? I may never know. I can’t tell you how many readers have decided not to pursue my fiction because they’ve realized I’m a liberal idiot. Surely some, possibly many. On the other hand, my blog readership doubled almost immediately when I took the gloves off, and has been growing ever since. And for people who love good fiction, the writer really is not the story. (If the writer was the story, I’d have been locked up a long time ago for “The Goat Cutter”.)
I am not a political writer, but I am a human being who is both political, and a writer. It’s more honest for me to embrace both those identities, and trust people to follow my work for its own sake, whatever they think of my opinions.
Plus I have a lot more fun being spice than being mayonnaise.
Tags: Books, Mainspring, Personal, Politics, stories
Posted: 4:56 am Wed August 19 2009 | Comments(4) |
[links] Link salad, (mostly) politics-free update
SF Signal‘s “Mind Meld” asks how blogging and the emergence of social networking have changed the face of publishing? How has it affected you personally? — In which I, among many others, offer an answer.
The Groovy Age of Horror — A blog devoted to a bygone era of horror. Some real gems there, including this decidedly NSFW piece. (Thanks to .)
Da Vinci’s Mechanical Lion Brought To Life After 500 Years — Zombie mechanical lion? Hmm…
Amber Ale: Brewing Beer From 45-Million-Year-Old Yeast — (Nicked from .)
Bicycle inflation in paradise — Funny, but speaking as Portlander of almost a decade’s standing, I can say that he wasn’t looking in the right places at all.
The Economics of Secret Chinese Menus — Not sure how secret they are, though you generally have to read Chinese, or be in the know. (Or both.)
Top ten urinals — Because you’ll never know when you need to take the piss. (Thanks to .)
Clash Over Rebirth of Mt. St. Helens — (Thanks to my Dad.)
Determined Pose President Barack Obama Chia Pet Head — Um. Wow. (Thanks, I think, to my dad.)
?otD: Who stole the cookies in the cookie jar?
8/19/2009
Body movement: 10 minutes of stretching and meditation, 30 minutes on stationary bike
This morning’s weigh-in: 224.8
Currently reading:
The Real Wizard of Oz by Rebecca Loncraine;
Pinion by Jay Lake
Tags: Culture, Food, Funny, Links, Personal, Portland, Publishing, Science, Tech
Posted: 4:08 am Wed August 19 2009 | Comments(0) |
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