Nanowrimo Day 2, still chuggling on

My Nanowrimo novel continues. I've written another 1,700 words. So far so good.
In writing this year's novel, I tried a new approach. Instead of just writing my 1,666 words a day, no matter where it leads me, I structure my writing around chapters. Each day brings a new movement to the story. So if I make it through Nov. 30, I will have 30 chapters. I decided to do this because in the past I would find myself hung up, unable to move away from the setting, character or idea I was working on. How do I make the transition to the next one? If I had lots of time, I could have just worked over what I'd already written and see where it should go. Doing things by chapters, I'm forced to work on a new thought each day and each day complete that thought.
So today's chapter was the world's largest infodump. It was 1,700 words on the back story of a giant monster crossing America. My characters live in the after-effects of that crossing. If I revise this novel, this chapter would be the first thing to be edited out. I would much rather have the background exposed naturally through the course of the novel. But in doing this, it helped me get a stronger notion of what has happened and how I shall proceed from here.
Tomorrow, it's back to my main characters, including introducing a new one.

Nanowrimo begins

Well, my first day's work is complete. I've written 2,305 words, about 300 more than my goal and about 700 words more than what I usually get done. This could be my best start yet (although, unlike Cybele, I don't keep track of my progress each year.) The writing has started out very clunky, but that's how these things usually proceed. I'm not going to worry about that until it's all over.
I've already introduced a monster, mutants and a bit of background on my giant monster. So it should be at least some fun.
How's everybody else doing?

Happy Halloween

It is that most wonderful of holidays filled with goblins and ghouls and ghastly things. And where will I be for all this dark tomfoolery? At work. As usual. Working for a daily newspaper can be frustrating. But for all you trick-or-treaters and costumed partiers, I'll be with you in spirit.
Most of today, however, is consumed with National Novel Writing Month and my preparations. I really shouldn't have waited to the last minute to create characters and plot this thing, but that seems to be my modus operandi. It will be interesting attempting this again after last year's break. Can I do 2,000 words a day? Will I be frustrated with myself? Will I reach new levels of joy in my writing? All will be answered in the next 30 days. Same weird time, same weird channel.
I do know that my novel will focus a giant monster, mutations and a quest. There also might be a tired, cynical adventurer in there as well. I hope I can pull it all together and make it fun.
For all of you other Nanowrimers out there, good luck and I'll see you at the finish line.

On the Blindside by Sonya Taaffe

I've just read Sonya Taaffe's story On the Blindside over at Anna Tambour's Web site. (I like that she's been reprinting stories, I'm going to keep a closer watch on her Web site.)
The story is a look at the intersection of the mundane life with the fantastic and its long-term effects. As I read it, it seemed to me an alternate take on Caitlin R. Kiernan's concept in her story "Onion" (which is one of my favorite short stories). After reading Taaffe's journal, I see she notes that Kiernan's "Murder of Angels" covers similar material (I'm so far behind in reading Kiernan's books.) In Taaffe's discussion of the story, she looks for other works that cover similar territory, mentioning things like "Lud-in-the-Mist" and "Moonwise."
Check out the story and then read Taaffe journal entry, it's worth your time if you're interested in literature of the fantastic.

SuicideGirls interview Jim Woodring

Suicide Girls have an interview with artist Jim Woodring. (Suicide Girls is a porn site, so there may be not safe for work content there.) He's got a new book out called "Seeing Things." I love Woodring's art, it's so fantastic and playful, yet disturbing at the same time. Pick up one of his books if you've got the chance. Here's an excerpt:

DRE: You’ve been working with Fantagraphics for so long and they really seem to treat you and your work with the respect it totally deserves. Are you able to feel artistically satisfied with the work you do?

JW: Oh sometimes. There are fleeting moments of satisfaction but those are short-lived. I generally feel spurred on by anxiety and a sense that I hadn’t achieved anything. I used to have this really infantile attitude that one day I would create a picture that was so good that would absolve me from all human responsibilities. I always thought that if you were a really great artist or a cartoonist that you didn’t have to worry about anything anymore. You could knock on any door and say, “I’m Jack Davis and I’m hungry and I need a place to sleep” and they’d go, “Jack Davis! Come in.” Or that the government would say, “I was looking at Jack Davis’ income tax return. He’s not doing that well, I think we ought to lower his taxes.” I just had this feeling that if you were a success as an artist that your future would be made. I don’t know why I thought that, like I said, it’s an infantile notion. But that feeling took a long time to fade out. It took me a long time to grasp the fact that people can do work that’s as good as they can possibly do and still end in squalor and despair."

Night of the Hunter stuff

Metafilter has an interesting post on Night of the Hunter, one of my favorite movies and perfect for this time of year. It's not explicitly a horror movie, but it might as well be. The Metafilter post includes a bunch of good links about the movie, definitely check it out.
I'm hoping to someday read the book by Davis Grubb that the film is based on.

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson

Robert Charles Wilson's "Spin" is the best kind of hard science fiction. While there are plenty of infodumps, great depictions of future science and fantastic happenings, the focus remains on the characters.
I got the novel from a publicist, but I must say I probably would have picked it up eventually on my own.
This is the second Wilson book I've read. The first was "The Chronoliths," which was fantastic in much the same way. It has a slight edge on "Spin" because the main character of that book was more proactive. In "Spin," the main character is so tied in with the people at the center of the phenomenon that he doesn't seem to have his own story. He's merely a window between the reader and what is happening to the other characters.
The book runs two parallel tracks. It starts with the narrator, Tyler Dupree, in Padang with his girlfriend Diane. He's in hiding and he's taking a drug for some unnamed purpose. Then we get into his childhood on the day the stars went out in the sky. We quickly find out that the Earth is caught up in a temporal shield. The Earth's time proceeds slowly while hundreds of thousands of years continue outside the Spin. Once science finds out the Spin is permeable, many avenues for science open. But the realization that at these speeds, the sun will swallow the Earth in only 50 years. Tyler is experiencing this with his friends, twins Jason and Diane. Jason is a scientist through and through. Diane, frightened by the spin, turns to religion.
And there is the basic conflict of the whole book. Jason keeps moving ahead, trying desperately to find out more about the spin and save the Earth. Diane, meanwhile, gets married to a religious zealot and is outside the narrative of most of the novel. But the subject of religion vs. science is always central to what is going on.
That's also something both the Chronoliths and Spin share. In both books, people scared into desperation turn to religion and strange cults. In both books, the main character must save a loved on from these cults. Wilson clearly sends an anti-organized religion message.
Wilson's book clearly cares about humanity and how it reacts to disaster. It's certainly a relevant subject to these times.

Shaken & Stirred meme via John Scalzi

Gwenda Bond has started a new meme based on John Scalzi's science fiction film canon from his new book The Rough Guide to Science Fiction. Ms. Bond lists the films and bolds the ones she has seen. (I'm surprised she hasn't seen "Godzilla" but totally agree with her that "Them" deserves to be here.)

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!
Akira
Alien
Aliens
Alphaville
Back to the Future
Blade Runner
Brazil
Bride of Frankenstein
Brother From Another Planet
A Clockwork Orange
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Contact
The Damned
Destination Moon
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Delicatessen
Escape From New York
ET: The Extraterrestrial
Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers (serial) (I'm not sure whether I saw this. I saw a lot of these serials when I was a kid and didn't pay too much attention to the titles.)
The Fly (1985 version)
Forbidden Planet (This is a sad hole in my viewing, I know.)
Ghost in the Shell
Gojira/Godzilla
The Incredibles
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 version)
Jurassic Park
Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior
The Matrix
Metropolis
On the Beach
Planet of the Apes (1968 version)
Robocop
Sleeper
Solaris (1972 version)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
The Stepford Wives
Superman
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
The Thing From Another World
Things to Come
Tron
12 Monkeys
28 Days Later
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
2001: A Space Odyssey
La Voyage Dans la Lune
War of the Worlds (1953 version)

There's some great films on that list. I may have to pick up Scalzi's book to see what he has to say about it.

Beatrice and Joe Bob Briggs

Ron Hogan announced he will interview Joe Bob Briggs in New York in November. I'm hoping he's writing a transcript of this.
I've always found Joe Bob entertaining, ever since I watched his show when it was on Showtime. (It later moved to TNT and suffered from a lesser selection of movies. I'm not sure it's on at all anymore.) That's where I first saw "The Warriors" and "Basket Case III." Classic. I used to subscribe to his newsletter, which kept me up on the film career of Shannon Tweed and other such luminaries.
I also enjoyed his men's movement parody "Iron Joe Bob." Briggs has got a new book out called Profoundly Erotic: Sexy Movies That Changed History, which is what Hogan will talk to him about.
Coincidentally, I was just thinking about Joe Bob today when I was writing about King of Kong Island (on my Giant Monster Blog). Joe Bob used to always use the phrase "too much plot getting in the way of the story." And that's almost the perfect way to describe "Kong Island."

Return to Nanowrimo

Well, it's that Nanowrimo time of year again. This will be the fourth time I've participated. The first two years, I succeeded in writing crappy novels, neither of which have I gone back to. Last year, I failed miserably. There was a lot going on, my girlfriend (now fiancee) was moving in, and my time was seriously curtailed.
This year I expect to get back on track and write another crappy novel. Usually, I start off with a general idea, maybe a character and a scene, and then ramble on in any direction I choose. This year, I may take this guy's advice and take a more planned out approach. We'll see.
I'll try to keep some kind of updates about it here, but probably nothing very in depth. Anybody else participating? (Link found at Morrow Planet.)

SciFi Weekly interviews Jeffrey Ford

Science Fiction Weekly has an interview with Jeffrey Ford. It's a good interview that goes over "The Girl in the Glass", "The Cosmology of the Wider World", and stories from his upcoming collection "The Empire of Ice Cream." The discussions of the individual short stories was very good and gave me a whole new perspective on "A Man of Light."

Live giant squid photos!

The first live photos of a giant squid! (As seen on BoingBoing.)

New horror anthology

Bookgasm (which is a great new blog by the way) posts about the new horror best of anthology. It's edited by John Betancourt, who has a hand in Weird Tales, Wildside Press, the new tales of Amber, and various other things.
The Bookgasm post says he has wondered about best ofs: “Why in the hell don’t they do one of these for horror?” Off the top of my head, I can think of two: The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (the horror section of which is edited by Ellen Datlow) and The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror (edited by Stephen Jones). Maybe the Mammoth collection doesn't count because it's British (though I don't think that's a good reason) but why exclude The Year's Best?
Anyway, I'm excited to see a new horror collection as well. It will be released in February 2006. I can't find a content list yet, though the cover of the book mentions Neil Gaiman, Gene Wolfe and Michael Swanwick.

A must read LiveJournal post

Jeffrey Ford has posted "Present from the Past" a beautiful, sad story about his mother's death. If there are any anthologies of great blog writing, this story deserves to be part of it. In fact, Jeff probably should have sold it to the New Yorker or something. All I can say is, don't miss this entry. It's the best thing you'll read all day (if not much, much longer.)

Shaken & Stirred on Jeff Ford

Gwenda Bond loves The Girl in the Glass. She also quotes a conversation between Antony and Diego from near the end of the book, which reminds me how much I enjoyed those two characters talks throughout the book. Characters and dialogue are two things Ford does so well. You can feel how close these guys are just from their words to each other. Wonderful stuff.

Dark was the night, cold was the ground

Metafilter has a fascinating post on "Dark Was The Night--Cold Was The Ground" by Blind Willie Johnson and its connections to ancient hymns, the gospels and an Italian movie.

Great ideas that never were: Dungeons & Dragons on TV

BoingBoing explores the concept of a celebrity D&D TV show. This seems like such a natural (as long as the players can avoid becoming embroiled in rule arguments). Apparently, Will Wheaton and members of the Upright Citizen's Brigade (one of the funniest sketch shows ever!) came up with this concept a while back and even presented a pilot to Comedy Central. Wheaton says it was terrific, but the channel didn't pick it up. I want to see this!

Liberal comedian sues blogger

I just want to help MNSpeak drum up some support after Garrison Keillor sent him a cease & desist letter for a T-shirt that says "Prairie Ho Companion." As the blogger rightfully points out, the T-shirt is parody and Keillor has no legal grounds to sue him. However, Keillor could bring it to court and make the blogger spend mucho dollars trying to defend himself. Eventually, Keillor would lose, but the blogger would be left with huge lawyer bills. Welcome to American justice. Keillor should get over himself. (Link found at Bookslut.) There's also a discussion of the case at Metafilter.

Jeffrey Ford, "The Girl in the Glass"

Jeffrey Ford's new novel, "The Girl in the Glass," is a story of a Mexican boy, Diego, growing up as an apprentice con artist on Long Island in the 1930s. Diego later becomes a writer. It's a great story filled with wonderful characters, many of them "freaks" from Coney Island: a dog boy, a strong man, a rubber woman and a knife thrower. It also has wonderful period details, including one about racism on the Island that will later propel the plot.
I love Ford's stories and novels and this one is no exception. Yet, I find this one harder to fall in love with than earlier novels like "The Physiognomy" and "The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque." Part of this, I think, is because the second half of the book seems to click into a mystery plot and follows it through to the climax. It even includes a sneering villain who spells out his plans to Diego.
But the pleasures of this novel far exceed any of my reservations about the plot. Besides the characters, the early chapters about the seances and the first explorations of the mystery behind the girl in the glass are beautiful, funny and exciting.
Here are some reviews of "The Girl in the Glass": John Clute, Cheryl Morgan and The New York Times.
In other Jeffrey Ford news, he's posted a review of Anna Tambour's "Spotted Lilly" at his livejournal. Ford is really good at recommending great fiction. Check out his column "The Virtual Anthology" at Fantastic Metropolis. I'm thankful that he talked about Akutagawa's "Hell Screen," which is a great story. Pick it up if you can find it.

The process of writing a novel

Justine Larbalestier answers a reader's question about how long it take to write a novel. The answer is interesting for those of us curious about how writers perform their craft. It also helps that she's funny. Worth checking out.
In a similar vein, Elizabeth Bear posts about How to become a mid-list writer.