Jay Lake: Writer

[personal] Walking and writing and working in Austin

Still in Austin. Spent part of yesterday working at Day Jobbery (a very rare weekend commitment), then with friends, then at dinner at the Hyde Park Bar and Grill. Mmm, one of my favorite restaurants. I used to live four blocks from there. Also got some more work done on Little Dog, as well as some critique for the Norwescon writers’ workshop forthcoming.

Walked this morning in downtown Austin, from my hotel by the Convention Center west on Sixth Street to well past Z Tejas and back. Along the way I passed the Hoffbrau House, Hut’s, Katz’s, Frank and Angie’s, Amy’s… I realized that my mental map of my old home town seems to be highly food oriented. I could spend a couple of weeks eating my way across Austin.

Today’s lunch break I’m hoping to catch with a friend, and I’m going to hit Chuy’s Hula Hut this evening. Mmm mmm. Should be able to get some editing time on Little Dog today as well. Tomorrow is iffier because apparently I am committed for 12 hours of Day Jobbery. That means even if I can squeeze out the time, I likely won’t have the energy. Plus tomorrow is the open dinner.

Back to Portland on Wednesday, to see the_child give her presentation on her eight grade project.

See some, all or none of you around the River City here.

Tags: Books, Child, Food, Little Dog, Personal, Texas, Travel, work, Writing

Posted: 5:06 am Mon March 19 2012 | Comments(0) |

[travel] Back in the Lone Star state

Yesterday I flew back to Austin. I slept a bunch on the first leg of the flight, but still managed to knock out worthwhile time on the Little Dog synopsis, plus catch up on my homework for teaching the_child‘s class. After I arrived yesterday, @dratz and Mrs. @dratz drove me out to Driftwood, TX and the mighty Salt Lick BBQ. Pretty much my favorite bbq anywhere, ever. But my gosh, how the place has changed. It used to be pretty much a summer camp dining hall out in the woods of the Hill Country. Now it’s… huge…

But the food. Mmm mmm. If you’re an unreconstructed carnivore, this place is heaven.

This morning I got up early (imagine that) and walked for an hour. The @dratz and Mrs. @dratzs live a few blocks from the house I owned when I lived here, so this is familiar territory. I walked down to the University of Texas campus and back. That would be my alma mater. While I had a pretty good time in college, I don’t tend to be afflicted with nostalgia for those days. Still, being on campus brought back a lot of memories. And I do miss Austin, a lot. I love Portland so much that the missing isn’t bitter, but maybe it’s a bit bittersweet.

Going to work on Little Dog for a while commencing shortly here. Breakfast this morning, probably at Waterloo Ice House, then I’m off to the trade show at noon. (I’m here for Day Jobbery.) Watch this space for confirming announcements about Tuesday’s open dinner.

It’s good to be back in Texas.

Photo © 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: Books, Food, friends, Little Dog, Personal, Photos, Texas, Travel, work, Writing

Posted: 5:03 am Sun March 18 2012 | Comments(0) |

[writing] Productivity are us

I managed to knock out about three and a half hours of writing time yesterday. This in addition to Day Jobbery, lunch with my mother, dinner with H—, and helping the_child with her homework.

The funny part about the_child‘s homework was that she was working on the assignment I’d given her class. This is a flash fiction due tomorrow, when I return for my second guest teaching slot. A quirky dynamic was in play. (As I said privately to her mother, “Is this cheating?”) The story is really quite good, and I’ll probably post it here soon if she gives me permission.

On my own front, I got a (nearly) full draft of the Going to Extremes proposal into la agente. What I sent her was a bit more rough than my book proposals usually are, but book length nonfiction is new to me, so I wanted her feedback before I invested a bunch more time in it. I also reviewed bravado111‘s annotations to the Little Dog proposal, which I’ll be further revising next, probably this afternoon after Day Jobbery. In addition to that, I did some leg work for the recent Oregonian interview, completed an online interview, revised and sent out that rush nonfiction assignment, and updated my marketing/productivity spreadsheet. Also finished reading lizzyshannon‘s screenplay Blood of Orange and started the next portion of kenscholes‘s novel-in-progress Requiem.

Today, Little Dog, unless life interferes or Fred calls a rest day.

Can haz busy nao?

Tags: Books, Child, Extremes, friends, Little Dog, Process, stories, work, Writing

Posted: 5:39 am Wed March 14 2012 | Comments(0) |

[process] The virtues of writing regularly

Yesterday I was having an email conversation with mlerules about structure, goal setting and accomplishment in one’s daily life. It occurred to me, literally for the first time, that writing is what provides me with this framework.

And such a framework it is.

As it happens, I believe that everybody benefits from having purpose in their lives. Many of us get this through work, or if we have them, raising children. But I think we also need some purpose that simply rises from within ourselves. Essentially, that’s what hobbies are. Mother of the Child gardens extensively, and produces visual and fabric art on an ongoing basis. My dad researches genealogy and family history. People do everything from build hot rods to volunteer at soup kitchens.

In all those cases, we’re doing something for its own reward. And writing can very much be that way. I certainly get my cookies from finishing a story, or making a sale, or getting a positive reader reaction. That’s not fundamentally why I write, but it’s certainly part of that structure/goal/accomplishment cycle.

Over the past decade, I’ve managed to rewire almost my entire personal life around my writing. It’s even infiltrated my parenting and my Day Jobbery to a degree. What I see now, in this discussion with mlerules, is that writing has become a key component of my life satisfaction, my happiness, and even my day to day mental and emotional health.

It’s kind of a nice thing to open my eyes and notice.

Tags: family, friends, Personal, Process, work, Writing

Posted: 6:33 am Wed February 22 2012 | Comments(1) |

[dreams] Always more with the postcards from the subconscious

Two nights ago, I dreamt I was hanging out with kenscholes and Mrs. kenscholes. For some reason it was very important for me to buy her a coat. (In real life, she works in the fashion industry, so this was more than a little odd — why would she need that from me?) The coat search became a desperate hunt.

Last night I dreamt I was at a casino with some friends from the Day Jobbe. It was a very strange place, sort of the Hotel California brought to life, but without the warm smell of colitas rising up through the air. The ominously not present owner had hired a large number of attractive young women with whom the guests were absolutely forbidden to flirt or otherwise engage. It was some kind of weird contest and power game. C— from work wasn’t having this, and kept trying to chat up these women. I kept trying to get him to leave, in which I only succeeded by promising to chat them up myself. Then out in the snowy, cold parking lot we could not find the exit.

Anxiety much?

Tags: dreams, friends, Personal, work

Posted: 6:29 am Mon February 20 2012 | Comments(0) |

[personal] Doing things in Denver when I’m not dead

ETA: My apologies, the mirror photo was unintentionally revealing, so to speak, which I didn’t notice due the dimness of the image. I have corrected it.

The Day Jobbery went well yesterday. I also got some writing time squeezed in. Along the way, markbourne pointed out to me that while I’d just written a short story entitled “The Woman Who Shattered the Moon”, he had recently written a short story entitled “The Woman Who Broke the Moon.” We exchanged manuscripts, and I believe have agreed our stories actually have nothing in common except for the core plot element of the moon being missing. His is a lovely, refined piece of street level magic realism; mine is a shambling character study in a steampunk world of mad science and political vengeance.

This morning I woke up even earlier than planned, further evidence that my body is getting back on to its normal sleep schedule. Unfortunately, to reach the workout room in this hotel you have to go through the pool enclosure, and the pool doors don’t unlock until 5 am. So I layered up with four shirts, a sweater and my trench coat, along with hat and gloves, and went walking on the downtown Denver mall in 26 degree weather. Breezy and very dry. Plus I hadn’t brought sweats, so my legs were bare beneath my coat, which made me look like a very cold-resistant flasher on the move.

Incidentally, the bathroom has slightly strange mirror illumination, thusly:

When I stand in front of it to brush my teeth, shave, whatnot, that square light reflects in my eyes in a very peculiar way. Basically there are two gleaming bright squares exactly bracketing my pupils. It makes me look like a slightly demented cyborg. I tried to capture the look, with partial success:

More Day Jobbery today, followed by tonight’s open dinner at the Mellow Mushroom [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]. I think there will be at least four of us there, so come on by if you’re in the area. I’ll also try to squeeze in some time on gearing up with final last-first reader feedback on Calamity of So Long a Life, Sunspin volume one, which effort will extend over the weekend and likely into next week. And off to Portland again first thing tomorrow morning, with hopefully more writing time on the plane.

I am pretty distressed about the cancer news. I feel like I’m on a roll with my writing, and my personal/social life is pulling together nicely. I just hate, hate, hate the thought of it all screeching to halt for another freaking year. Won’t know any more before next week, so I’m just plowing ahead with all the things on my plate, head down and moving fast.

Death is on my heels once more, as he has been these last four years.

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: Books, Calamity, Cancer, Colorado, Food, Funny, health, Personal, Photos, stories, Sunspin, Travel, work, Writing

Posted: 6:18 am Thu February 16 2012 | Comments(7) |

[travel|writing] Off to Denver, writing progress

I’m off to Denver this morning for some Day Jobbery. I’ll be there til Friday, home to Portland Friday afternoon. As previously announced, there will be an open dinner Thursday night for anyone in the Denver area who wants to john up with me. [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]

Yesterday I finished the novella revisions and got that story out to the requesting market. I also confirmed guidelines on two short story requests, one of which I plan to start working on today. The other I’ll work on after I get Sunspin final revisions knocked out. I’ve given my first readers this coming Thursday as a response deadline, so that should give me enough time to draft this first short piece before I start working on Calamity of So Long a Life this Friday. After that my punch list includes that second short story, the Little Dog synopsis, and the book proposal for the Antarctica project. As I don’t have myself scheduled to go back to Sunspin until April, I should have time in March to write a bit more short fiction.

And so it goes.

Tags: Books, Calamity, Denver, Food, Little Dog, stories, Sunspin, Travel, work, Writing

Posted: 6:27 am Tue February 14 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad awakens with slow reluctance

In case you missed it over the weekend, my new cancer tattoo: [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ] — Yes, on the back of my skull.

Christopher Walken reads Where The Wild Things Are

Antarctica – Fantastical World without Borders — An Antarctica travelog, relevant to one of my future projects. (Via bravado111.)

Avería: The Average Font — Interpolative typography. Huh. Fascinating. (Thanks to kshandra.)

Washington Park: 1907 — Detroit’s “moon towers”, as depicted here, later were sold to the City of Austin, where most of them still survive.

One’s A Crowd — The trend toward living alone?

garyomaha on working lunches, or not

Neurocinematic comparison of monkeys and humans — Spaghetti western reveals differences between human and monkey brain. Mmm, neurocinematic. I loved this bit: Like most other films, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a complex multisensory stimulus, filled with rich, operatic imagery and, of course, Ennio Morricone’s unforgettable score. It is, however, fairly safe to assume that humans and monkeys will interpret the film quite differently. (Via danjite.)

Path Is Found for the Spread of Alzheimer’s — The headline is slightly misleading, as the story refers to Alzheimer’s progression within an individual rather than to transmission between individuals. Interesting stuff.

The Komen Controversy: Planned Parenthood Claims a New Kind of Victory in the Culture War — I am baffled by the conservative charge that Planned Parenthood “bullied” Komen. What is the Right’s treatment of Planned Parenthood but bullying, if you want to frame it in those terms? More to the point, for decades the entire forced pregnancy movement is about bullying desperate, vulnerable young women and their medical providers. What else is a clinic blockade or a doctor target list but sheer, awful bullying in the name of what? The god of love? Decency? Conservative bigotry and “morals”? Can you imagine the reaction if liberal-progressives blockaded churches and targeted pastors? Project much, guys? The Right can dish it out, but they can’t take it.

A Puritan’s ‘war against religion’ — Roger Williams, the Puritan who founded Rhode Island, insisted on the state refraining from intervening in the relationship between humans and God. Freedom of religion absolutely means freedom from religion. That is the best protection any church has against persecution. Despite the modern GOP interpretation, freedom of religion doesn’t mean the freedom to exercise oppressive bigotry, narrow-minded judgmenentalism, or tear down educational and cultural standards in favor of silly mythmaking.

ericjamesstone points out that I am wrong in characterizing Romney as saying he won’t have a Muslim in his cabinet — This in connection to my comment that I thought making an issue of Romney’ religion was a red herring, until he made an issue of Islam as a religion. Speaking as an atheist, there is nothing more or less at issue with Romney’s LDS membership than there is with Newt’s Catholicism or Clinton’s Southern Baptist faith. To me, the religion of the candidates would only be an issue if there were a straightforward atheist running on a major party ticket. Which won’t likely happen in my lifetime…

Senate GOP: Activist Federal Judges Wanted — The hypocrisy of a group of Republicans who are supporting the lawsuit against Obama’s recess appointments. Republicans being hypocritical? That’s as inconceivable as the idea of Newt Gingrich cheating on his wife.

The true conservative alternative: Ron Paul? — It’s sad that conservatism has become a race to the bottom to display the most ignorance, bigotry and sheer foolishness.

?otd: Dream much??

2/6/2012
Writing time yesterday: 5.5 hours (Sunspin revisions)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.5 (solid)
Weight: 229.4
Currently reading: The Man in the Moone, and Other Lunar Fantasies ed. Faith Pizor

Tags: Antarctica, Art, Books, Cancer, Culture, gender, healthcare, Links, Movies, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Religion, scorner, Tech, Texas, Videos, work

Posted: 6:29 am Mon February 06 2012 | Comments(0) |

[conventions|travel] Epic ConFusion Day Three, going home

Day three of Epic Confusion was very abbreviated for me, as I had to leave the hotel at 10:30 am in order to make my flight home. Still, I managed to attend a very nice breakfast, courtesy of cathshaffer and various concom folks, and say good-bye to a bunch of people by virtue of loitering in the lobby while my airport transportation ran 40 minutes late.

Which, yes, gave me a bad case of the “oh crap”s.

Nonetheless, I made it into DTW in a timely fashion. The flight down to DFW was uneventful, and I got the first part of what would eventually be 2.75 hours of editing on Sunspin done. I spent the rest of my time divided between Charlie Stross’ Laundry books and Saladin Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon, both of which I’m enjoying immensely. I don’t normally split my attention between two books, but I have Stross in eBook and Ahmed in dead tree, and the exigencies of air travel caused me to have to switch modes periodically.

In Dallas, we took a long time landing due to the 50 mph cross-winds on the runway slowing air traffic down severely. That also slowed down the arriving flight that would become the equipment for my Portland connection, to the degree of being almost two hours late. So much for my plan of flying through Dallas to avoid winter weather delays in Chicago or Denver. So much for a good night’s sleep, as well.

Anent Sunspin, I got through the first revision pass of the first half of Calamity of So Long a Life, and began embedding the comments for an initial pass through the second half. Right now, I’m actually a bit ahead of schedule for what I expected on this book. I think that’s a good thing, but it might also mean I have been skimming work when I should be digging deeper. We shall see…

Also, I forgot to mention that at Epic Confusion adelheid-p gave me a very nice gift. I need to thank her, and will post photos and a description some time in the net few days as time permits.

This afternoon is another girls’ basketball game, though the_child has been down with a respiratory infection the last few days, so it’s not clear if she’ll be able to play. She gets sick so rarely, this is unusual.

And of course, now that I’m home, Day Jobbery.

Tags: Books, Calamity, Child, Conventions, Sunspin, Travel, work, Writing

Posted: 6:42 am Mon January 23 2012 | Comments(0) |

[personal|writing] In which both progress and regress are made

Yesterday’s weather here in Omaha was beastly. The kind of weather that makes me wonder why anyone not under the supervision of a court actually remains in this place. In fact, this morning, when faced with 10 degrees, wind and ice patches on sidewalks in the predawn darkness, I gave myself a very rare bye on my morning exercise.

Day Jobbery yesterday was productive if lengthy. At home, if I get tired (and fatigue is still very much an issue), I can go sit in my easy chair for 15 minutes and read work email from there. No such option in the office, where you’re pretty much full on the entire time you’re in. It’s the little things that are wearing. Still, I’m holding up and doing well.

On the home front, the_child did another high school visit yesterday. We are coming to grips with her choices for next year. And though some subjects are definitely harder than others for her, she remains diligent in her assignments, while playing hell for leather on the girls’ basketball squad. She makes me proud every day.

In my own world of assignments, I got another writing session in after work. 2,400 word in an hour on “You Will Attend Until Beauty Awakens”. Plus the plot sort of did this origami lurch and I now see what my subconscious was foreshadowing the other day. Fred, the little man inside my head, is way smarter than me. I’m sure glad he’s in there. Doubtful there will be writing today due to my work and social commitments, but there will be more tomorrow.

And a little bit of WIP… Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Child, Omaha, Personal, stories, wip, work, Writing

Posted: 5:45 am Thu January 12 2012 | Comments(0) |