Jay Lake: Writer

[child] Basketball, in which a parent on the sidelines sustains a game-related injury

Yesterday afternoon, the_child‘s basketball team won their game 38-22.

The teams were pretty evenly matched, and the game was a lot better than that somewhat lopsided score implies. And she slammed in two three point shots, for a 100% completion rate in this game. So good on my kiddo!

However, I sustained a game-related injury during the course of play. Go figure.

The gym at her school has regulation sized basketball court, but not much sideline. The bleachers are against the north wall, and if you’re sitting on the bottom row, your feet are about twelve inches from the north boundary of the court. Our little group — me, Mother of the Child, Dad, (step)Mom and tillyjane a/k/a my Mom — were seated almost perpendicular to the basketball goal at the east end of the court, in effect to the left of the backboard and just a few feet toward the center.

For whatever reason, play of game kept running right up into our faces. Dad caught several balls that had gone out of bounds. We all flinched back more than once when charged by a player from one team or the other. But the coup de grace came when a knot of defense and offense careened right toward me and I had to lean back avoid feet and elbows, and slid right off the bleacher bench and into the footwell of the row behind me.

I got stuck there and had to be pulled out. My back hurts, I’m pretty sure I bruised it right on one of my lower spinal knobs, and my left hip aches.

It’s all part of the business of being a dad, and a price I’ll cheerfully pay. But really, when did watching middle school girls play sports become so dangerous?

Photos © 2012, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.

This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Tags: Child, family, Funny, Personal

Posted: 6:37 am Fri February 03 2012 | Comments(1) |

[writing] Sunspin revision update

Well, I’ve processed my way through a couple of more passes of the manuscript of Calamity of So Long a Life. I’m now looking at one more close read for deep issues based on several salient critiques from my agent and first readers to date.

I can tell I’m nearly done with this revision because I’m starting to get sick of looking at this book. That’s my subconscious’ way of telling me to lay off it before I file off all the interesting bits and polish it into terminal blandness. I do need to do this last pass read-through, however. With luck I can manage it over the weekend, or no later than early next week.

I’m feeling good about it. Hopefully the world will, too. And I’m very pleased with being on target in terms of my production schedule for this project.

Tags: Books, Calamity, Sunspin, Writing

Posted: 6:36 am Fri February 03 2012 | Comments(0) |

[photos] Your Friday moment of zen

Your Friday moment of zen.

Tranny Man, Crescent City, CA. © 2007, 2012, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.

This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Tags: Photos, zen

Posted: 6:36 am Fri February 03 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad watches the Child hit the boards

Skungy Art. “Surfing the Gnarl.” Read Feb 7, Feb 11. — Rudy Rucker on (among other things) the February 11th reading in San Francisco, where K.W. Jeter and I will be sharing the stage with him.

Author C.J. Marsicano is running a Kickstarter campaign to get a book out — Go check it out.

Penguin Further Narrows Library Access, Suspending Availability of Audiobook Titles — Hmmm. (Via danjite.)

25 Things I Learned From Opening a Bookstore — (Via willyumtx.)

The Hill Approach — Seth Godin on creativity.

The Story of a Suicide — Two college roommates, a webcam, and a tragedy. Tyler Clementi and Dharun Ravi.

Brains may be wired for addiction

Blood test accurately distinguishes depressed patients from healthy controls — Interesting. (Via @jackwilliambell.)

The Secret of Ant Transportation Networks — Just how ants create the highly efficient network of trails around their nests has never been fully understood. Now researchers think they’ve cracked it.

With Risk, Japanese City Takes On Once Accepted Fact of Life: Its Gangsters

Restored Edison Records Revive Giants of 19th-Century Germany — Talk about your obsolete formats… (Via my Dad.)

A case study of the tactics of climate change denial — But notice what he’s done. He’s taken what is clearly a minor point and blown it up as if it’s my main point. He’s used shady words (predictions, models) to cast aspersions, and to make someone (me!) look bad. Then, by “refuting” this minor issue he can then poison the well, strongly implying that all my arguments are wrong. That’s kind of a big no-no when trying to argue a point. But it packages well. A pretty neat summation of typically wrong-headed conservative discourse on a lot of issues.

Happy days are here again — Roger Ebert on Newt, Mitt and the evolution of political party nominating conventions. Entertaining and interesting bit of history, regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum.

The Invincible Nobility Of The Middle Class — Ta-Nehisi Coates on a modern political meme promulgated by both major parties. But the implication of a middle-class patriotism holds that the poor do not work hard, and do not play by the rules. Their poverty is a moral stain. It’s rather sad to see ostensible progressives reinforcing this message.

The Politics of Cancer — This Komen-Planned Parenthood business is one of the more disgusting maneuvers on the part of the conservative movement. I am beyond appalled. Bluntly, the Right has made it clear that they find it preferable for poor women to die of cancer than have any potential access to abortion. A stark indictment of the forced pregnancy movement.

Romney: Context for me, but not for thee — Typical Republican. “Do as I say, not as I do.” Romney brags about mining Obama quotes deeply out context, but protests the unfairness when Gingrich does precisely the same thing to him.

Bush beats Obama’s deficit spending by 5 to 1, but Romney targets the wrong guy to whine about — Much easier to complain about a black Democrat that acknowledge the Republican party’s responsibility for its actions when last in power.

Mitt Speaks. Oh, No!

Blending politics and religion, Obama says his policies are an extension of Christian faith — Ok, I find this kind of thing alarming whether it comes from Republicans or Democrats. This is a secular nation in a secular world, and rational thought should be the basis of our governance.

?otd: What’s the last game you played?

2/3/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (Sunspin revisions)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.0 (solid)
Weight: 230.2
Currently reading: The Man in the Moone, and Other Lunar Fantasies ed. Faith Pizor

Tags: Books, Cancer, climate, Conventions, Culture, healthcare, Japan, Links, nature, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Religion, Science, Tech

Posted: 6:35 am Fri February 03 2012 | Comments(2) |

[art] Dreaming Cat, by the Child

the_child made a get well card for Lizzy Shannon (who’s recently had surgery), and I loved the picture she drew so much I asked her permission to put it on my blog. She told me not until Lizzy had seen the card first. Well, card has been delivered, and so now the rest of you get to enjoy the image.

Dreaming Cat, by B. Lake

This work by B. Lake. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Tags: Art, Child

Posted: 6:38 am Thu February 02 2012 | Comments(2) |

[writing] More killing of the darlings

Sigh. An excerpt from a now-deleted scene in Calamity of So Long a Life…

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Calamity, Fiction, Process, Sunspin, Writing

Posted: 6:36 am Thu February 02 2012 | Comments(0) |

[photos] Your Thursday moment of zen

Your Thursday moment of zen.

Treasure harbor village crafts, Crescent City, CA. © 2007, 2012, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.

This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Tags: Photos, zen

Posted: 6:33 am Thu February 02 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad joins the Center for the Easily Amused

Five Authors + Five Questions : Goals — Shimmer‘s blog on various writers on various issues. Including me.

Philip Glass on style

Darwin Day — Portland celebrates the Antichrist one of the heroes of modern science on February 12. (Via threeoutside.)

DNA Turning Human Story Into a Tell-All — Humans and Neanderthals and Denisovans, oh my. I especially liked this bit: [O]ur modern era, since H. floresiensis died out, is the only time in the four-million-year human history that just one type of human has been alive. (Thanks to Dad.)

Steampunk Pocket Watch Winds Via Solar Power — So to speak… Some neat lateral thinking here. (Via markbourne.)

Experts Build Crab-Like Robot to Remove Stomach Cancer — Huh. (Via danjite.)

How Neutrino Beams Could Reveal Cavities Inside Earth — Commander Laforge to the bridge.

Scientists close to entering Vostok, Antarctica’s biggest subglacial lake

Team to investigate underwater ‘UFO’ – is it sunken ships or Millennium Falcon? — Duh, of course it’s a life size replica of a completely fictional starship. At the bottom of the ocean.

Far side of the moon filmed by Nasa spacecraft — One whole face of the Moon can never be seen from Earth because it does not spin on its axis, meaning we always have a view of the same side. Umm… stupid much?

Bill legalizing same-sex marriage passes Washington state Senate — Someday fairly soon, opposition to gay marriage will have all the social panache and credibility as opposition to interracial marriage, and for much the same reason. This shameful bigotry will be the province of bitter, aging cranks, largely behind closed doors.

I Don’t Care About Your Invisible Jeebus — But from where I stand these days, the only thing I see religion doing in the public sector is gay bashing and telling women, mostly poor and desperate and in deplorable financial and personal situations, what to do with their bodies. I see busybodies deciding what drugs they can dispense to which customers, or deciding that they don’t have to issue a marriage license because of some petty deity that I don’t believe in told them to hate their fellow citizens and ignore the law.

Indiana Senate passes bill putting religion in science class — Conservative America: driving all our children deeper into ignorance every year. Yet another of the myriad reasons I can never be conservative, and honestly don’t understand how any thoughtful, self-aware person can be.

Teleprompters are stupid … only when Obama uses them — Ah, conservative “logic”.

The Conservative Backlash That Isn’t Coming — Some thoughts from conservative commentator Daniel Larison. I will observe that since no one in the GOP seems to remember the eight years of the Bush administration, preferring to blame the disastrous outcomes of his governing on conservative principles on Obama who inherited Bush’s mess, how could there be a backlash?

Have Democrats Succeeded in Pre-Destroying Romney? — A conservative leaning narrative complaining about the Democrats using the same tactics that have been so successful for the GOP these past decades.

?otd: Are you ever bored? Why?

2/2/2012
Writing time yesterday: 2.0 hours (Sunspin revisions)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.5 (solid)
Weight: 227.2
Currently reading: The Man in the Moone, and Other Lunar Fantasies ed. Faith Pizor

Tags: Cancer, Cool, Culture, Funny, gay, healthcare, Links, nature, Personal, Politics, Process, Religion, Science, steampunk, Tech, Washington, weird, Writing

Posted: 6:32 am Thu February 02 2012 | Comments(1) |

[personal] Wetware compass and clock

Yesterday I posted about dreaming I was lost, and how I have an excellent sense of direction in real life. I’m also a very good navigator, as has been proven on night land nav exercises, as well as road trips through places like central Mexico. Last night it came up in conversation that I also have an excellent time sense. Even in the absence of a clock I almost always know what time it is, to within 5-10 minutes, and my sense of elapsed time is also finely honed. This latter is a useful skill during business presentations and so forth.

These two senses combine to make me very sure of my place in the world, in a literal sense. I also suspect they help me very sure of my place in the world in a figurative sense. One of the many side effects of chemo was for a time wiping out both my sense of place and my sense of time. That’s an extremely disorienting experience, given that I’ve spent my entire life relying on those aspects of awareness.

As mentioned above, I wonder if being so anchored is part of why I am usually so good at remaining centered and self-confident. As has been observed on a number of occasions, I am a nigh pathological extrovert. Extroversion is privileged in our culture in some important ways. Do I project so well into the world because I am always so certain of where I stand within it?

Do you have a good sense of time and place? Does that affect your mood, your ability to project to other people?

Tags: Personal

Posted: 6:38 am Wed February 01 2012 | Comments(5) |

[conventions|personal] The SFWA Portland Reading Series, other miscellany

the_child and I attended the SFWA Portland Reading Series last night. Mary Robinette Kowal introduced, John Pitts hosted and read, while Ken Scholes and David D. Levine rounded out the bill. It was a lot of fun, and we heard some great fiction.

I also had a lot of fun watching the_child work the room, both at the pre-dinner and during the pre-show and intermission breaks at the reading. She was cruising around being friendly and articulate both to old friends and to new folks she’d never met before. Whatever life has in store for her, this girl’s ease with people will be a big part of it.

Due to the various time commitments yesterday, I barely squeaked in an hour of Sunspin revision. Still, I am drawing close to being done with these — perhaps another week of effort, I’m not certain. I’m beating the bushes for another few first readers, because I’d like one more reality check before submitting this to la agente for send-out.

Today I’ll be fairly busy, and most of the weekend will be taken up with supervising the_child‘s labors on her eighth grade project, about which more anon when the time is right.

Tags: Books, Child, Conventions, friends, Personal, Sunspin, Writing

Posted: 6:31 am Wed February 01 2012 | Comments(1) |