If there's a particular subject of interest, click one of the tags below and you'll get a list of relevant, irrelevant, and sometimes irreverent postings.

Hey Wiscon32, that check was good!



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Kind of a bad/good/meh news day.

The hardcover for Valentine's Exile (June, 2006) is being remaindered by the publisher. Such is the nature of the beast. Of course this doesn't interfere with the mass-market, which is selling at a nice rate, so it's not like readers will have a gap in the series (and even if they did that wouldn't be fatal to anyone but completists. I've tried to have each book stand on its own, though reading Wolf would really help anyone new to the series).

On the bad side: Crap! I'm going out of print.

On the good side: Sometimes you pick up new readers with a cheap remainder. That's how I started reading David Gemmell and Bernard Cornwell and a few others.

On the meh side: Happens to everyone. King gets remaindered. Tom Wolfe gets remaindered. And on the counting-your-blessings side, you have to be published in the first place to even go out of print.

I'll just roll with it and order a dozen cheap, so maybe I can help out a few completists in the future.

He jock it made of steel. Eat sushi from a pail...

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I found a bag I like for the Dominator MX-10. It fits, just. I was hauling it to the cafe in a padded shipping envelope carried in a con bookbag. So that's taken care of.

Some months ago I complained here that the only good part of Sarah Brightman's last album (Symphony) were the photos of her running around in what looked like the ruins of Osgiliath. Well, I hauled out her old album Classics the other day (actually it was to rip it to the new laptop) and I looked in the liner notes.

I was kind of shocked to find your basic Maxim photoshoot of Sarah inside.

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If I'd ever looked at it before I've forgotten.

But more to the point, this helps you interpret Beethoven with your voice how exactly?

I know I'm being a complete hypocrite because no one's a bigger fan of women flouncing around wearing only a little beach sand and a smile, but I kept imagining some thirteen year old going through grueling voice training thinking "Here I am fighting my way through the Queen of the Night aria and if I ever make it, they're just gonna want a closeup of my snatch."

I'll just hope all this was her idea (my custom naiveté helmet, headphones, and goggles come in a variety of sizes and colors, I can give you a link if you want one). I used to work at a photo studio and lots of women wanted themselves depicted and preserved in this fashion, and more power to 'em. I'm not saying SB isn't a beauty and pulled it off nicely. But if the suckholes in marketing decided she needs to strip to sell music, it's just one more reason to hate producer Frank Peterson. I wish someone would clock him with a cowbell.

I came across this quote yesterday. It's from 33 year old General Antoine Charles Lasalle, recalled by Napoleon from Spain to serve against Austria, when asked if he would go to Germany via Paris.

"Yes, it's the shortest way. I shall arrive at five a.m.; I shall order a pair of boots; I shall make my wife pregnant, and I shall depart."

He was among the 27,000 French killed at Wagram a few months later.

I'm not big on superhero movies -- though I did like the X-Men flicks -- but I think I may have to see Iron Man just because I like watching Robert Downey Jr. work. I'm hearing good things about his performance, and hey, he's the kind of guy who can make by-the-numbers stuff like Air America interesting. Is he part of the Brat Pack? Or did you have to be in a bunch of John Hughes movies to get that label?

So I may hit a matinée this week. Only thing that's holding me back is that Saturday's the SF Film Fest at the Music Box and my tickets are sitting on the shelf above the computer. That's a lot of hours in a theater chair for one week. Maybe I could count it as physical training.

Forget the helmet, I'll need an iron butt by the time Basil's kick-ass Robocop score starts up.

Well, the new laptop showed up. I love it but it's a monster. It needs a handle at the top of two golden kneeling angels with wings touching ala the Ark of the Covenant. I selected the biggest screen you can get with an Inspiron because when I work I usually have two (or more) docs open, the ms itself and either a stylesheet or outline or notes etc. Also, movies on planes. When you open up that bad boy there is a wow factor. So I'm thinking of naming it the Dominator MX-10.*

We're gonna need a bigger bag.

*Gimme the film reference and I'll send you something signed. No Google cheating please.

First, Roo doesn't even seem sick. Brought him home from the vet yesterday afternoon. He's on antibiotics and I think we caught the UTI early. He's gained .7 of a pound since the vet last saw him in the fall, so yay Roo!

Second, John finally nailed down the formal offer from Roc about Age of Fire 5-6 and they settled the numbers. I get to see my brainhatchling through to completion, so yay me!

I listened to Howard on Late Night Jenga Jam and he did a fine job, mostly talking about heroic fiction. I was expecting more talk about how you could also tell a sword & sorcery tale through machinima but it didn't come up. Black Gate got some good plugs.

Oh, as you know, whenever I get a book deal I commemorate it with the purchase of a collectible. I really have a lot of dragons lying around the place so I was thinking about this:
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Every country boy knows this ditty:

“Hooray, hooray! The first of May! Outdoor lovin' begins today!”

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I haven’t done a writing craft post in a while. I was talking to Howard Jones the other day about plotting, and I brought up my “baseball diamond” metaphor from my blog. He had no idea what I was talking about. I looked it up and sure enough, I’ve never talked about the baseball diamond plot here. My cheesecloth brain often confuses what I’ve taught in classes and what I’ve written about here, so my bad, Howard.

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michaeldthomas suggested I put down my thoughts about this year's NFL draft. There are lots of new faces I'm excited about, but I'm using a cut because not all of you share my interest in football:

( on to the talent )

Well, I'm in the throes of recovering from a back spasm. And before y'all start with the off-color jokes about overdoing it with Chats being back, I was doing a layback at the gym, so there.

It was way worse yesterday. Today I can move around much better. Walking helps a lot.

While they're awful when they happen, it picked a pretty good time to hit. I'm not under the gun on any deadlines and Chats is around to help me out.

It's gloomy and rainy today anyway so just resting and reading sounds extra attractive.

Chats' plane is wheels up. She changes in Phoenix and will be home late this afternoon. Her apple pie's in the oven.

The shop in Oak Brook did not have the sunglasses she wanted. I may have to go to Michigan Ave. Darn it. And I have to clean up this pigsty before she gets back, so maybe I'll just have to take her shopping and let her pick them out herself.

Pulp and Paperback con also has a DVD dealer who always has an interesting assortment, and I finally got my hands on the German WW2 propaganda film Titanic. It was rife with historical inaccuracies (I'm a 2nd rate Titanic buff) but it didn't stop it from being a gripping and well-done film.

( Cut for my commentary plus some screen caps of the Teutonic tit parade )

I joked with Greg Ketter from Dreamhaven that I should just have my agent send a portion of my royalties to him and save all concerned a good deal of time.

Just got back from Windy City Pulp and Paperback. I came home with:

• A signed edition of E. Hoffmann Price's stories collected in Far Lands Other Days (Vampire Earth fans have probably figured out I'm a fan) complete with a letter from his last editor(!!) written after Price's death. There's a staggering amount of words in the volume (and a bellydancer on the spine) with wonderful illustrations by George Evans of EC Comics fame. I could go on about Price for quite a while, but he had a very clean, energetic style, sort of a cross between R.E. Howard and Hemingway and a good eye for detail. If you're looking for a guy who lets precise nouns and vigorous verbs tell a story, Price is your guy.


• A signed Easton Press edition of Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness. There's a preface by Joan Vinge (who I see now and then at cons) and a new introduction written for the volume by Le Guin.


• A first edition of Watership Down only slightly spoiled by someone's damn "from the library of" bookplate. That's probably why it was on the 50% off rack where I was shopping. But screw it, a first edition is a first edition. Now I just have to figure out a way to get it signed.

More on Price. This is from his introduction, which I found amusing, but it'll give you some idea of the flavor of the man. Plus, editorial war stories are always fun:

Selling fiction is as odd, in its way, as is writing the suff.

When I came out of the Mexican jungle in 1935 and headed for W.K. Mashburn's home in Houston, he handed me a letter from my agent. "Slapdash Jigglebottom likes your novelette, the one you did to his order, but he'd like to have you make some changes . . ."

The schedule of changes was long as a whore's dream.

I wrote my agent, in effect, thus: "Tell him that for $100 he may put my name on the bly-line, and write the story himself-- that way it will be exactly what he wants. I will not have time to revise the yarn. Before I can get back home and to the work, they'll fire that silly bastard! You dig in and sell it, as is."

When I got back to my desk in Redwood City, there was a letter from my agent. In it was a check for that story. And he wrote, in his message, "You must be psychic. They fired Mr. Jigglebottom a couple days ago."

He goes on to praise several of his long-time editors.

I also love the final line, dated 1974. He's writing about how many of the tales were inspired by his travel experiences

Go with me, to Far Lands, some of which I have seen and loved. My Other Days go back to the kerosene lamp, homemade ice cream, and the hand powered manure fork . . .

True, women did wear long, long skirts -- but they didn't sleep in their clothes, Glory Be!

I happened across this while reading an essay by an sometimes Hollywood writer who does the occasional piece for NR under the pseudonym of David Kahane.

It struck me as so right, so true, and so applicable to my chosen branch of fiction that I had to copy it down here:

"Still, there’s nothing wrong with genre pictures, as long as both you and the audience get the ending you want, but not the ending you expect."

Beautifully put. I dunno, maybe everyone who's ever had Screenwriting 101 has heard this and you're all shrugging and saying "and?" But it impressed me as a worthy goal for the ending of any genre novel. This one will be going up there with Alan Dean Foster's "Write every day. Submit when you're done."

Oh, speaking of him, there's an interview with Foster at the SCIFI.com. I know he's not to everyone's taste, but I've always found him readable and entertaining. One of my favorite con memories is sitting next to him at a pizza dinner at Archon talking about travel. And I can't believe he hasn't been to Patagonia! That seems like such ADF type territory.

So I'm thinking I should treat her to something when she gets back. I already promised her an apple pie (her favorite) which I'll bake Saturday morning.

But I want to do something else for her as a surprise. And since I've got a hatful of sensible gals who read this blog, I thought I'd consult you women, because that extra chromosomal data you have gives you mad skills in gift buying and romantic surprises. (Guys can vote too, but I purposely left off "Buy her TUROK: DINOSAUR HUNTER for the XBOX.")

Poll #1175889
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

What should I treat Chats to when she gets back?

Don't worry about spoiling the surprise. She doesn't have internet access.

Meh.

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Everyone else is talking about the "Open Source Boob Project." I should probably chime in since I'm such a big fan of boobs. Struck me as a very junior high idea, or maybe something you'd come up with in a room full of drunk friends.

Half the fun of touching boobs is all the flirting that leads up to it. Above all, I admire the woman who can pull off the perfect "oops! accidental boob brush" on a guy she's interested in. As a male, within the first two seconds post-brush you get more thoughts and theories and plots and questions than James Angleton debriefing a KGB defector. Was it accidental? If it wasn't, is she just provoking a reaction, teasing, or sending a signal? The moment right after a ABB when you exchange eye contact ... ahh, that's sweet. It's an art.

The "OSBP" reduces that glorious dance to a process about as exciting as political polling. That's all I want to say about it.